Kristian Larsen is a Tamaki Makaurau based multi-disciplinary artist:  dancer / choreographer / musician / composer / writer / researcher / teacher / improviser. Working at the edges of contemporary dance and experimental music in live performance, Larsen’s performances describe relationships between the somatic and the acoustic through creative misuses of dance techniques and audio technologies. His choreographic thinking on bodily agency in an era of hyper-capitalism is distracted by notions of hauntologies of obsolescence, disability, and hope. 

Residency: Post-script
3rd March 2026

The Local Makers Residency generously offered to me by Xin Cheng & Adam Ben-Dror has been an opportunity to expose my artistic practice to new contexts and deepen my thinking about obsolescence and collaboration.

At the beginning of the residency Adam took fellow resident artists Hannah-Lee Jade, Chris Berthelsen and I to the Tipping Point. at the Waitākere Resource Recovery Park in Henderson. The Tipping Point has a reuse shop, a construction and demolition hub and a tool shed. This trip was an invitation to potentiate artistic activation’s at the site.

Initially I thought about performing live sound there and inviting other sound artists onsite to build instruments from what was lying around. However I couldn’t quite reconcile the nagging suspicion that such an artistic event would merely come off as superficially ‘relevant’ without actually being able to support the needs of the environmental resource project that is the Tipping Point. The tension I feel underscoring that non-reconciliation stems from my reluctance to deploy my art as an instrument of social or political change. That doesn’t serve the ‘why’ of me being an artist. For better or for worse I make art for its own sake. For my own sake. In the hopes that I might flourish in the greater mesh of artistic communities and collaborative relationships I encounter. That being said the Tipping Point has remained a hauntology in the back of my mind in all of this activity.

Within the residency space my focus returned to obsolescing sonic devices, live performance, indeterminacy, experimental sound, and collaboration with Adam. Both Adam and I tend to get very excited by the sounds electronic devices can make and how they might be used in performance. Their problematic quirks and crazy failures tend to offer glittering intrigue and mad interest when we first play with them. iPads took centre stage in our attention.  

We recommissioned e-waste iPads, phones, and other tablets . It seemed incomprehensible to me that these aesthetically pleasing and powerful devices are very commonly just thrown away. That was until I began trying to work with them again and i realised how barely usable they actually are. In my opinion these i-devices are at the apex of consumer grade built-in-obsolescence. Exemplars of predatory upgrade-itis bait. Apple’s store of incredible, powerful, colourful, sound apps with beautiful and clever user interfaces are diabolically easy to purchase. But if you have an iPad with an old non-updateable operating system you have a problem. Or if you have an iPad that can acquire and run these apps but has a defective battery issue then you also have a problem. Or in the case of Adam and I around about 16 problems. And two mixers.

We developed improvisational sonic dialects using synthesis and feedback apps.

We looked for materials other than human hands to operate and trigger the tablets such as ball bearings and wet leaves..

Investigating gestural behaviors with the body lent itself to introducing contact mics and objects into the performance palette.

Embracing the instability of aging hardware and software introduced indeterminacy, glitches and system limitations as aesthetic possibilities. Each practice session featured negotiations between control and chance and an open invitation of failure as a creative device. Offering conditions that moved us toward intuitive, embodied performance.

For me there is a tightrope that is walked within the creative process when first practicing with, and then performing with devices that offer failure and indeterminacy. The discoveries that occur when first trying things out tends to ignite the imagination with visions of transcendent mistake making in performance. Promising exciting well timed happy accidents that leapfrog one through creative portals, evading stale habit and rote learning. This excitement can obscure the very real possibility that it can just suck when your e-devices fail in front of a live audience. Like practicing improvising on a guitar for a long time. Then finally nervously getting in front of an audience. As the lights go down and your vulnerability is at its peak, your fingers touch the fret board. You discover that all 6 strings on the guitar have ridiculously and mysteriously disappeared. Unbelievably so have your pants. So what do you do…

Keep improvising I guess.

The Local Makers Residency has been a rich and nourishing developmental phase in which to continue discovering and practicing.