New additions to the CBD's Living Room

8 May 2008

You can expect the unexpected when taking a stroll through the CBD in the next few weeks, as the two latest additions to Auckland City Council's Living Room series come to life.

My Heart is a Beast, by Winning Productions, and Peep Show, by Chow:Hill in association with Specialised Lighting Concepts, aim to grab the attention of Auckland's residents and visitors with street performances, temporary sculpture, and night time video installations.

Guaranteed to entertain and evoke a reaction from the viewer, My Heart is a Beast is a series of dance performances featuring the mysterious presence of a half-human half-stag creature whose wild spirit blends into everyday urban life.

Artist Stephen Bain, who also brought us last year's Baby, where are the fine things you promised me? and this year's Die Henkel Spur, says his installation will ask the public to consider their mid-city surroundings, a place where beast no longer belongs.

"It will ask the audience to consider what civilisation means and how far we have travelled from animal to civilised human," he says.

The performances will take place at lunchtimes and some evenings at various locations between lower Queen Street and Karangahape Road.

Peep Show, the second installation taking place this month, is set to surprise and entertain those who visit the CBD after dark.

This contemporary video experience is aimed at the most fundamental of human desires – the desire to observe others.

"As the population in Auckland's CBD increases, residents are becoming increasingly disconnected with their immediate neighbours. People's interaction with those who live around them is often limited to furtive glimpses through windows or open doors," says artist Fiona Buchanan.

Peep Show plays on this idea, giving passers-by the chance to steal glimpses of the lives of others through apartment windows at night.

See Peep Show at the Pioneer Women's and Ellen Melville Hall, on the corner of High Street and Freyberg Place, between 6pm to 2am, from 19 May to 2 June.

Still to come in this year's Living Room series are Urban Life and Storybox, which showcase in June.

The Living Room programme is funded by the CBD targeted rate and is one of many projects in a 12-year plan to enhance the urban environment and support the vitality and attractiveness of the CBD.