Simon Denny - A year of The Founder's Paradox

Simon Denny is a New Zealand artist based in Berlin. In 2015, he represented NZ at the 56th Venice Biennale with his work Secret Power - which explored the workings of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its partners in the Five Eyes Alliance, which includes New Zealand. In 2018 he's exhibited a new work, The Founder's Paradox, which reflects on competing political visions for New Zealand's future within a volatile social climate destabilised by new technologies. It alsoexamines the role of billionaire backers of a hyper-capitalistic vision, including Silicon Valley-based New Zealander Peter Thiel. Simon Denny and journalist Anthony Byrt talked to Kim earlier in the year when the work was launched in Auckland; today he talks to Noelle about developments in the year since the work has been on show. The Founder's Paradox has this week opened at the Christchurch Art Gallery.