From the Editor

By Matt Cooney, May 2, 2007 @ 5:30 am

There was a strange sense of old-versus-new in assembling this issue of Idealog. While I was happily downloading video clips from the Internet and mobile networks to report on the reinvention of TV, senior writer Gena Tuffery was reliving the glory days and the untimely demise of Silverscreen, the company that essentially invented the local ad production industry but closed its doors in January.

The Silverscreen saga has been reported elsewhere, but Gena has dug deeper and talked to Silverscreen staff, including Geoff Dixon, the man who founded the company in 1974. ‘Silverscreen’s final scene’, on page 34, is a compelling tale of a creative powerhouse with a glittering record that wasn’t able (or perhaps willing) to deal with the new realities of a budget-driven industry.

Maori artists and designers are familiar with the old-versus-new discussion—they’re working with rich cultural property but too often there’s a tendency for others to see their work as stuck in tradition. Worse, the enormous social and economic value of Maori cultural IP isn’t appreciated, even as the world is searching for authentic cultural experiences. Amokura Panoho finds some solutions on page 44.

And Vincent Heeringa has journeyed back to the faraway days of the Knowledge Wave. Okay, the last event was held in 2003, but it feels like an earlier age. Visit the Knowledge Wave website and you can almost see the tumbleweeds among the burble about defending the America’s Cup and earnest plans “to get more wind in our economic sails”.

The Knowledge Wave—and its stated goals to get New Zealand back into the top half of the OECD wealth chart—have been forgotten as quickly as a 5-0 whitewash on the water. Why? And how are we doing on that chart, anyway? Vincent has asked those questions, and the answers don’t make for comfortable reading. If you care about our economic future you’ll want to read his bleak report on page 66 and share your thoughts on our website.

Our musicians, at least, are getting on with the job, and in this issue we have Mark Roach’s photographs of some of our finest musos at work. And to mark New Zealand Music Month in May we’re putting Mark’s pictures online as a wiki and inviting Kiwi music fans to share their recollections and anecdotes about their favourite bands. We’ll see you there.