Open Window: Leon Narbey, A Film of Real Time: A Light and Sound Environment

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery opened its doors to the public for the first time on 22 February 1970, with an ambitiously scaled, interactive environment of neon and fluorescent lights, reflective plastic surfaces, and ringing electromagnetic chimes. Created by Leon Narbey (who was then aged 23), the installation embraced the entire architecture of the building—directly responding to the then newly-refurbished terraced gallery spaces designed by New Plymouth-based architect Terry Boon. Constructed within the site of the former Regent Cinema, Narbey’s work employed the base elements of film—light, sound and movement—to move beyond an experience of spectatorship, into a realm of immersive, present-tense experience. The work’s kinetic, aural and luminous elements were all activated by a series of sensors—creating the sensation of an environment responding to audience members as they navigated within it.

Real Time announced the Govett-Brewster’s arrival as a contemporary art museum dedicated to presenting progressive and experimental approaches to audiences in Taranaki. Narbey’s work is remembered as a watershed moment in the experience and understanding of art in Aotearoa. Narbey’s material and spatial ambition speak to a moment when the conventions and confines of artistic experience were being radically rethought: from the quiet contemplation of discrete objects to a field of sensorial possibility—contingent upon and constructed in-relation to a specific environment, and only able to be fully realised through active participation from an audience.¹ 

As a temporary installation, Real Time exists now only through this filmic documentation, shot by Tom Hutchins, Narbey’s photography lecturer at Elam School of Fine Arts. A Film of Real Time, though, exceeds pure documentation, and has a language of its own. It unfolds through fast, erratic cuts, jumping between detailed views of the many coloured and textured components which made up the experience, and individuals engaging with the work. Discordant percussive clangs, high-pitched rings and chimes, and throbbing drones are heard over these images. Acquired into the Govett-Brewster’s collection in 1972, the film was restored in 2015, and now represents a key moment in the development of Aotearoa’s sculptural and installation-based history, as well as the country’s tradition of experimental, non-narrative-based film.

Narbey has gone on to become one of Aotearoa’s most respected cinematographers, and has contributed to many important and enduring films over the last half-century, including Te Matakite o Aotearoa (dir. Geoff Steven, 1975); Bastion Point: Day 507 (dir. Merata Mita, Leon Narbey, Gerd Pohlmann, 1978); Desperate Remedies (dir. Stewart Main and Peter Wells, 1992); Whale Rider (dir. Niki Caro, 2002) and The Orator (dir. Tusi Tamasese, 2011). As a director, Narbey has made the films Man of the Trees (1982); Illustrious Energy (1988) and The Footstep Man (1992).

¹ Christina Barton, “No Ordinary Museum: The Govett-Brewster, Contemporary Art and the Contingency of History,” Now Showing: A History of the Govett-Brewster (Ngāmotu New Plymouth: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2016), p. 260.