Dane Mitchell’s Post hoc conjures up the ghosts of our past, calling up millions of vanished, extinct, absent and obsolete things. From submerged atolls to failed utopias, extinct languages to tax havens, long lists of lost, withdrawn and vanished entities and phenomena are announced and transmitted, accumulating as a forecast of the past.

This year long, daily broadcast featured a new guest collaborator each month who responded to Post hoc's near-endless reading of the list of lost things. Featuring new work by Keiji Haino, Max Eastley & Al Doyle, Gate, Rachel Shearer, Rob Thorne, Rosy Parlane, Olive Kimoto, Thistle Group, Torben Tilly and Hermione Johnson.

Akin to the ritual of the 161-year-long broadcast of the shipping forecast, this vast tomb of things that our present sits on top of might be considered a forecast of the past. Read by an artificial intelligence entity named ‘Amy’, the vast inventory of loss spans an almost incomprehensible range of subjects:

missing artworks; extinct sign languages; lost bodies of water; discontinued newspapers; banned and withdrawn pharmaceuticals; chimerical, forbidden or impossible colours; extinct plants; lost films; previously recognised constellations; destroyed comets; banned aroma molecules; defunct electronic trading platforms; historical currencies; closed nuclear facilities; disappeared sounds; failed banks; black holes; silent radio stations; prehistoric mammals; sinkholes; cured diseases; former national anthems; tax havens; extinct birds; destroyed monuments; recessions; discontinued photographic film; dinosaurs; disbanded political parties; censored exhibitions; secret societies; supernova...

Over the course of the broadcast nothing is ever repeated — each utterance occurs once before sinking back into the past. The work attempts encyclopaedic totality, yet like all databases, it is never complete, filled with voids and arrested by its own development.

Post hoc was set to original music produced for the series by the artist and a range of guest composers, including work by Al Doyle with Max Eastley; Hermione Johnson; Rosy Parlane; Rachel Shearer; Torben Tilly; Rob Thorne; Gillian Whitehead (guest composers supported by the Chartwell Project).

Dane Mitchell’s Post hoc was first presented in 2019 as the Aotearoa New Zealand National Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale (supported by Creative New Zealand).

Discover Post hoc on nts.live + posthoc.xyz


Dane Mitchell danemitchell.co.nz

Dane Mitchell (b.1976) lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dane Mitchell represented New Zealand at the 58th Venice Biennale with the project Post hoc. Mitchell's work has been included in major exhibitions including, Venice Biennale (2019); Bangkok Biennale (2020); Biennale of Sydney (2016); Liverpool Biennial (2012); Gwangju Biennale (2012); Singapore Biennial (2011); Thailand Biennale (2018); Busan Biennale (2010) and 29th Graphic Arts Biennial Ljubljana (2011).

He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Gertrude Glasshouse, Melbourne; SAM Sound Art Museum, Beijing; Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland; Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Ōtautahi Christchurch; Institut D'Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne; RaebervonStenglin, Zürich amongst many others.