Edge-blended two projector digital video installation with original soundtrack, 15min 10sec, exhibited at Gow Langsford, Onehunga, September – October 2024.
Reviews:
Victoria Munn, Art New Zealand, Summer 2024/25. Excerpt:
“With Erotic Geologies, Nat Tozer continues her artistic inquiry into the ground and the underground on an impressive scale. Drawing from a complex myriad of conceptual sources encompassing science fiction, te ao Mãori, and Maori and Greek mythology, Tozer digs into the contemporary relevance of the ground and the knowledge that lies below. Doing so, she subverts Western, anthropocentric concepts of knowledge, ownership and time to proffer an alternative ecology.
Eddie Giesen, Art News Aotearoa, Summer 24. Excerpt:
“My lack of breakfast leaves my stomach just a little sickly, and I find this gentle nausea the perfect place from which to experience the dust-choked anxiety of Natalie Tozer’s film, Erotic Geologies. The pensive duo draws me into a wretched yet somehow beautiful landscape. Even in their desolate circumstances, the pair seem to be yearning to always push forward, onward, upward; a dance on a quiet Earth. In this way, there is also a sense of acceptance, purpose-a serenity.
The work is sensory and immersive, such that I can almost imagine the smell of space, recounted by numerous astronauts as burnt raspberries and welded metal. It’s this smell that lingers with me afterwards, reminding me of the sweet, raw, aggressive gentleness our protagonists must impart on their journey home.
I consider whether, like these characters, we all struggle towards destiny. We are so often compelled to imbue life with meaning while simultaneously holding the knowledge that all we have made and all we are will one day be returned to dust. The mad grapple-parry and peace of this knowledge is made evident in the strange and exquisite world depicted in Tozer’s work. Ultimately, annihilation is both behind and ahead of us as a species and ecosystem. As is beauty.”
Artist’s talk at Gow Langsford, October 2024
Excerpt:
“I have a material practice, a social practice and a digital practice. And I try to access the ground using these various modes. Materially, I access the ground through digging, burying and unearthing canvases and objects. In my social practice, I access the ground metaphorically through facilitating a non-hierarchical, flat-formation, grassroots network for local artists seeking connection. And in my digital practice I access the ground through narrating caves, portals, tunnels and underground experiences.”
Podcast between Mark Williams and Nat Tozer
Abstract:
“There is a vitality that is held in the earth.” In this kōrero, artist Nat Tozer and CIRCUIT director Mark Williams talk rubble, dust and green screens, recorded on the occasion of the Aotearoa premiere of Erotic Geologies, Tozer’s most complex work to date.
Nat Tozer’s Erotic Geologies (2024) is an ambitious new video project described as “a sci-fi parable that seeks knowledge from the underground.” Shifting through an otherworldly landscape where rocky outcrops meet tumultuous skies, the setting of the film makes reference to post-earthquake Ōtautahi in Te Waipounamu and the Tongariro Crossing in Te Ika-a-Māui. The narrative follows protagonists Rangi and Liberté, characters inspired by both Māori mythologies surrounding the figures of Ranginui and Papatūānuku’s children, and Greek figures Deucalion and Pyrrha. Archaeology, time and kaitiakitanga are central to the work, which merges a local, contemporary narrative with deep time and mythology.
While several of Tozer’s earlier video works were one-person productions shot on her iPhone, Erotic Geologies marks a profound shift in production methodologies, and incorporates actors, technical collaborators and apocalyptic animated landscapes.
In this kōrero, Tozer discusses her expansive practice with Mark Williams, reflecting on “the slippery mess of our built environment.”
Published writing on the occasion of a solo presentation of Deucalion & Pyrhha (an earlier iteration of Erotic Geologies) at the Sluice Lisbon: Territory biennale, November 2022
Territory II: Lisboa expo edition
Sluice and PADA brought together an international and interdisciplinary selection of artist and curator-led projects to explore the impact and interconnections of the ecological, environmental and political consequences of territory. Territory is a year-long focus which culminates in Lisbon on 11-13 November 2022, running in conjunction with Lisbon Art Weekend. Exhibitions, performances, screenings and talks featuring over 80 artists are situated throughout the Barreiro district.
Abstract:
“What deep histories shape today’s behaviours? What porous borders, rich soils, strategic navigational routes, ideological imperatives resulted in these people living here (anywhere) and sharing a broadly similar outlook? And do they, and in these fractured times are these territorial claims constructive, divisive or just inevitable?
The Sluice expo: Territory is a large-scale multi-venue examination occupying various spaces around Barreiro, Lisbon. The Territory expo consists of over 30 projects and 80 artists all questioning – in conflicting and sometimes jarring ways – the ecological, environmental and political consequences contained within territorial systems.”
Featuring:
Agencia de Borde, Yanelys Nuñez Leyva & Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Natalie Tozer, Nithya Iyer , Jonny Roberts, Alistair Gentry.
Knowing the Living Volcanic Field. L.A.S.E.R (Leonardo Art-Science Evening Rendezvous) and screening of Erotic Geologies, May 2025
Abstract:
“The memory and prescience of future volcanic events are inscribed into the names of our maunga in Tāmaki Makaurau, existing and excavated, the subject of scientist and researcher Sylvia Tapuke’s Kaupapa Māori approach to toponymic research. Volcanologist Kate Lewis (Auckland Council) recounts the fiery formation of the lava caves and the intermingling of geological and cultural heritage. She works to transform imminent threats of development into opportunities to get to know our volcanic relations. In resonance with the process of connecting cultural narratives, artist and film-maker Nat Tozer explores the underground as a site of human meaning-making drawing on science fiction, catastrophe and mythic journeys to the underworld. Her moving image artwork Erotic Geologies, which presents cyclical time and highly mobile geology as main characters, will be shown during the panel. Moving image innovator Sam Tozer will discuss his work on compositing an emergent whenua from geo-data in this imagined world. The panel will be hosted by Janine Randerson and Ziggy Lever.”
For further information, please visit the project website:
https://gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/artists/324-natalie-tozer/