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Meridians Shanghai 2010: Art & Sound in Public Space project was officially launched on 18th May by the Hon. Jacinta Allan, Victorian Minister for Innovation, Industry, and Regional Development (DIIRD).
One of the creative outputs from the project was a two-minute 'webisode', produced by Greg Szopa and Clare Leporati.
The project has been featured as a news item on the RMIT University website, including a link on the home page.
The article looks at artist, Cameron Robbins, process, the role in Expo and the development of the project idea by Clare Leporati and Tammy Wong.
Click here to read the article.
Meridians Shanghai 2010: Art & Sound in Public Space is an international collaboration to create a contemporary public artwork for the Victorian Cultural Program at Expo Shanghai China 2010.
I am a member of the project team and have also embedded my role in the project as a case study for my Masters.
Our project team is made up of Me (Clare Leporati), Tammy Wong, Geoff Hogg, Rupa Ramanathan, Claire Tracey, Joanna Buckley, Robin Dick and Greg Szopa. Our lead Australian artist is Cameron Robbins.
To document, share and explore the creative process we have a wiki that we use as an online creative portal for the project.
Meridians creative portal.
Check it out to follow the project as it progresses.
For more information about the project on the RMIT website, click here
Tonight is the first class for Semester Two. It also marks my progress from the Graduate Certificate to the Graduate Diploma. Only a year to go until the Masters is complete.
Above: City of Yarra, Billboard for Art Program
I've spent quite a bit of time work shopping what kind of artwork I would place on my NOT Like site. Friends and I have discussed having a work that interacted with the motorists rather than pedestrians as that would be a better reflection of how most people encounter the site. We had trouble coming up with an idea though that wasn't too much like a billboard or could potentially cause accidents. I am aware though that the City of Yarra, where my NOT Like site, is situated already has a Billboard Public Art Program so I still think it is a viable option.
Another idea was to find a way to place earphones around the site so people could sit in the space and block out the traffic noise. We all liked this idea but realised that it would be quite logistically difficult without someone to maintain and headsets and to stop them from all getting pinched. 
Yet the question still remains of what to do with the work that is already there. I think through this process I realised that my problems with the site weren't just that I found the artwork very ugly, as I had originally thought. But as I have already mentioned in previous posts having the hard noise of the traffic with hard quite aggressive sculpture did have a lot to do with it.
In the end I think I would arrange to have part of the site dedicated to something like a billboard project project, ideally one that would engage with the history of the site on some level and if nothing else I would remove the dog sculpture's teeth.
Above: Speed Cheek - Oakwood Park by Clare McCracken
When thinking about what kind of artwork would fit well into my LIKE site without overwhelming the balance of its current uses the work Speed Cheek - Oakwood Park by artist Clare McCracken immediately came to mind. The work is situation in the City of Greater Dandenong and this is how it is described:
The sculptures are inspired by Jeffery Smart's surreal urban landscapes and inspired by the backdrop of the Eastlink motorway; designed for bike riders and pedestrians to measure their kilometres per hour.
Using sophisticated motorway technology Speed Cheek are two speed checking devices placed beside the shared user path that runs through the heart of Oakwood Park measuring the speeds of bike riders and pedestrians going both from east to west and west to east.
Speeds are displayed on two solar powered LCD screens which hover above the path so that park users can see the pace at which they are moving. The sculptures will provide a free interactive experience for local and visiting schools, recreational groups, cyclists and residents.
Although I am against merely replicating artworks from place to another I think something that came from a similar consideration of the uses of the site and working to develop a work that interacts with them would be ideal.
