Catalogue > At random

Alex Monteith

Composition with RNZAF 3 Squadron Exercise Blackbird for three-channel video installation

Vidéo | hdv | couleur | 15:16 | Nouvelle-Zélande | 2010

?onboard three grey Iroquis in military formation over Te WaiPpounamu?ridgetop alpine mists?tussock valley floors?radio communication... Award winning artist Alex Monteith collaborated with Royal New Zealand Air Force No.3 Squadron Leader Oliver Bint to compose a flight routine for three simultaneously flying RNZAF Iroquois helicopters. The action was performed during RNZAF Exercise Blackbird; a two weeklong search and rescue (SAR) training exercise based at Dip Flat at the northern section of the Southern Alps of New Zealand during the winter of 2010. Three helicopters fly maneuvers? in the line astern formation of banking turns in the Alpine areas of the isolated Leese Valley. Each helicopter was installed with identical rearward facing on-board HD cameras. The artworks key maneuver is a three helicopter simultaneous pedal-turn on a ridge-top; the only military maneuver of this kind ever developed specifically for an artwork. The video artwork contains no cuts. The audio is continuous intercom. dialogue between the radio operators at Dip Flat and the pilots in all three helicopters as they position and reposition to maintain the flight-plan.

Born Belfast, Northern Ireland (1977), Alex Monteith is an artist and academic based in Auckland New Zealand where she is a lecturer at the Elam School of Fine Arts, the University of Auckland. In 2008 she was awarded the Arts Foundation New Generation Awards, one of New Zealand?s most important bi-anneal awards for contemporary art and her video work Passing Maneuver 2008 was a finalist for the Walters Art Prize 2010. Her work is post-studio in orientation and often takes the form of performances, video art and large-scale actions with high-speed or high-risk cultures with radical sensitivities to geography.