anthropocene interventions I

The durational aspect of this intervention allowed the co-workers the capacity to physically experience the changes resulting from the movement of the Earth around the sun, for a period covering both the summer and winter solstices.

A sphere was constructed from 2 different lengths of balsa wood and joined with hot glue and elastic bands around a blow up globe of the world.  It was constructed in the boardroom of the office space, during work hours.

The purpose of the sphere was to intercept the sunlight during the summer solstice (Southern Hemisphere in December 2014) by capturing the ephemeral, made static, shadows on the boardroom wall.

Initially the co-workers were asked to vote on the material for rendering the summer solstice image – they chose charcoal which was applied directly to the plaster wall.  They were concerned about the temporary nature of the charcoal but agreed that ephemerality was an important element for the work.

The sphere was removed to give prominence to the residual marking of shadows, however, due to requests from the co-workers the sphere was reinstalled and I as the artist was able to engage with the winter solstice (Southern Hemisphere in June 2015).

These interventions resulted in the co-workers being able to physically experience the durational changes occurring and subsequently recorded in their work environment.

The winter solstice cast sunlight through the sphere and distributed residual traces of shadow, diagonally across 5 sites within the office environment.

The winter solstice was more invasive with thick paper/card cutouts interspersed across the office space, including one that covered a hot-desk computer screen.

These two aspects of the project successfully engaged the co-workers in relation to the artwork, each other and clients and/or contractors who attended meetings in the office space.  Two conclusions emerged regarding relations with the physical and conceptual artwork;

1. the artwork became a trigger point for fostering interpersonal connections thus becoming exponents of the meaning of the work and
2. the co-workers stated their immersion in the artwork allowed them to experience and understand the component of time and the indication of seasons which translated into an understanding of their relationship to the planet and its rotation around the sun.

The final act of the summer/winter solstice interventions occurred during a company meeting when all co-workers were gathered in the boardroom.  Prior to the meeting the sphere had started to deteriorate, elastic bands snapping off and dropping to the floor. During the meeting two thirds of the structure collapsed to the floor.  This unplanned event and its timing completed this section of Anthropocene Interventions I.  Images and messages were forwarded to the artist with comments expressing a feeling of sadness at the collapse of the sphere and by the removal of artwork at the end of the sphere.

In addition gifts were made, gifted and emergent processes resulted, within this series of interventions.  The details of this can be read on the gift page of this website.

anthropocene interventions II

‘air is a gift’ has become the subtitle for this section of the research.  It is currently in progress and the following is a temporary  selection of images of the work to date.