Michael Nicholson is a painter, sculptor, photographer and video artist who first came to New Zealand in the 1950s to work at Elam School of Fine Arts. Currently in his nineties, his latest work The Michael Nicholson Visual Music Project: Stage 3. Op.s 1-4 is inspired by the abstract expressionist paintings of Wassily Kandinsky and imagines the possibilities if the painter had worked with a video synthesizer.

The video installation is part of This is Experimental: A festival of experimental film and film makers at the Film Archive .

Michael Nicholson is a painter, sculptor, photographer and video artist who first came to New Zealand in the 1950s to work at Elam School of Fine Arts. Currently in his nineties, his latest work The Michael Nicholson Visual Music Project: Stage 3. Op.s 1-4 is inspired by the abstract expressionist paintings of Wassily Kandinsky and imagines the possibilities if the painter had worked with a video synthesizer.

The video installation is part of This is Experimental: A festival of experimental film and film makers at the Film Archive .

The video animation was originally created on a machine called the "Scanimate" in Australia in the 1980s, a machine which was used for early Star Wars, Sesame St and The Electric Company animations. The U-matic animation tapes were deposited at the Film Archive over a decade ago but have been carefully cleaned and preserved. Nicholson then worked with Film Archive Project Developer Diane McAllen over many weekends to edit Opus 1-4 to the musical score.

How would a good friend describe your aesthetic or style?

If I may stand in as my own best friend, I would talk about an Abstract Expessionist adolescence, and about aestheticising concerns since anti-establishment activism degenerated into Po-Mo Gamesmanship.

What aspect of your creative practice gives you the biggest thrill?

The expression "thrill" is a bit shrill for such a slow moving process as art-making. Perhaps when the next move one makes brings an apparently moribund work back to life.

How does your environment affect your life?

Depends how far from the nearest bottle shop it is.

Do you like to look at the big picture or focus on the details?

Both, of course. Each work is a little process embedded in a larger process. Maintaining that exquisite balance between forces tending to order / atrophy within the process and those tending to chaos / disintegration, is one of the name of the game.

What is your number one business tip for surviving (and thriving) in the creative industries? You must have seen many changes in art practices over the decades.

Stop thinking of Art-Making as a business. If you don't get known, you won't get seen. If you don't get seen, you won't get known. So begin by playing up. Get serious later. An early death in tragic circumstances is not a bad career move, if not for you then for your dealer.

Which of your projects to date has given you the most satisfaction?

The one I happened to be working on at the time.

You describe your recent video works as Visual Music. What is (or makes) Visual Music?

What makes Visual Music? Diane and Me.

You refer to your new work as an "Opus" or a "Composition", terms associated with classical music. Yet, visually your videos seemingly connect more with a pop art, punk or psychedelic aesthetic. If 'eyes' had 'ears', what genre of music would you suggest your work is closest to?

Music has musicology. At present VM has no such frame of reference. There is no stylistic cross over whatsoever between the two forms. The sooner VM gets a divorce from the Muso fraternity and begins to stand on its own feet, the better.

What role does the balance between chance and intention have on your creative process?

I have chosen to play Visual Language Games as Yin to the Yang of my routine existence.

Who or what has inspired you recently?

Get old. Do revision. Re-reading Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Tr: Anscomb concurrently with Will Shakespeare's Sonnets. Learning some of them by heart to check the state of my grey matter. The pleasure of the cadence of words from both sources.

If you could go back and choose a completely different career path to the one you have chosen, what would it be?

I wouldn't

What place is always with you, wherever you go?

The inside of my skull, unfortunately.

What is the best way to listen to music, and why?

A disc player in the corner of the studio where the couch is situated. Not that bad. Why? Because I say so.

You are given a piece of string, a stick and some fabric. What do you make?

A new work. Since I was born in a little old English town called Newark-upon-Trent, pronounced Newerk, I shall call the piece a "Nu-erk"

What is the best stress relief advice you have ever been given?

Be a good little Buddhist Monk and learn to regard the outcome of events in your personal life with indifference.

What's great about to-day?

It isn't raining.

What's your big idea for 2008?

Since both nuclear energy and the motor car are unsustainable, buy a camel.

Opening Thursday 14 August 5.30pm in the Film Archive mediagallery Wellington. The installation is on display at the Film Archive mediagallery until 20 September.

This is Experimental: A festival of experimental film and film makers.

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14/08/08