Eric Vaughn Holowacz Archives

Archives Items Relating to the Life, Times, and Cultural Engineering Work of Eric Vaughn Holowacz of Wellington, New Zealand and Sedona, Arizona

December 03, 2005

Dreaming of a Tate Modern Aotearoa

Lovemarks Inspirational Consumer Feature
http://www.lovemarks.com/community/topfive/25


My dream of a Tate Modern Aotearoa led me to Saatchi, then to Kevin Roberts, then to NZEdge.com and to Lovemarks. Like a lot of people, I found Lovemarks on a detour. Since moving to New Zealand in 2001 (from the historic coastal town of Beaufort, South Carolina) I have stopped acquiring books, subscribing to periodicals, or buying packaged recorded music. I consume information in a different way, and I depend heavily on an iMac. The Internet is another form of information, news, and inspiration and I am there often.

Iím not really an apostle of the Lovemarks non-brand brand, but I am a disciple of the website. It is a bold, genius, sly, visionary device. I can hardly resist the urge to add my thoughts, cherished memories, fond recollections, past consumptions and product relationships. The telling of these things, by thousands of other disciples, has generated a crowd of tiny ethnographies for all to explore.

Whenever Iím in a foreign city -- Barcelona, Rio, Venice, Sydney -- I always visit a local supermarket, pharmacy, and cinema to see how the normal culture gets along and how it consumes lifeís essentials. My favourite stores are op shops, Asian groceries, anything in Wellingtonís Cuba Street, a handful of on-line retailers and auction sites, military and scientific surplus, the Island Bay Butchery, restaurant supply stores, and the ubiquitous (in New Zealand) $2 Shop.

Iíd like to own most things designed by Philippe Starck. Every chair, radio, toothbrush, fly-swatter, hotel interior he touches seems to explore the previously unimagined and the charmingly real. I am perpetually in search of a classic late 1960ís Lambretta scooter, and the Citroen DS, the car known as goddess, is probably the single greatest form of individual transport ever invented. Finally, Iíd like to be in Barcelona again. I donít think that even the most skilled alchemist could conjure up a city as interesting, exciting, friendly, gastronomical, lively, warm, or fit for a Lovemark than that. But more than anything else, Iíd like to see a Tate Modern satellite museum built in Wellington, half a world away.

Eric Holowacz, New Zealand
eric@holowacz.com