Y Trydydd Masg [The Third Mask]

Abstract

Y Trydydd Masg [The Third Mask] uses 360 video (via the third mask of the title) to create a virtual documentary about the author's experience of moving from Wales to Aotearoa (New Zealand). The work uses and challenges the emerging orthodoxies around 360 ​​Documentary Video to intensify the idea of ​​location, whilst also conveying the paradox of the author's (dis)connection from his ‘native square mile'. In addition, the work uses Poetic Inquiry and musical improvisation as methods through which a critical reading of Dirlik’s notion of ‘groundedness’ can be embodied in the weave of a creative text. In so doing, the process also reveals the nascent influence of a Māori-inflection to the question of identity, and academic argumentation.