Philippa Abbott & Simone Bliss

Art installation using LEDs and weaving: Melbourne, State of Design Festival 2011

"As we traverse our urban environment we experience a dynamic perception of place. We are, after all fundamentally social beings. As we move we become part of the throng, like birds turning as a flock in the wind, we react to our immediate environment and our sense of one another. As we travel; engaging and avoiding, dissipating, and interacting, we are becoming fluid taxonomies of place, through the patterns of people. We speak of, and to, the connections and capacities of being human, and the innate symbiosis in our interaction. Is it identification with place? What are these patterns of person to person interaction? How do they differ from place to place? And how do these patterns get interrupted and formed by the city?"

Art pieces:

1. Commuter connections - Entrance to Melbourne Central Station
2. City open wide - Rooftop Bar at Curtin House, Swanston St
3. Close knit - Honeymoon Bore, Alywarr land, Northern Territory

Rationale:

Map and document two areas within the city (Melbourne Central station entrance - lower level & Curtin House Rooftop Bar, Swanston St) according to social use and human to human connection. Thread together the points in time and place that people connect – direct eye contact, touch, affection, a smile, enjoyment of sunshine or whimsical moments of reflection and interest.

Map a third area using the same tools however in direct comparison to the first two, A close knit indigenous family living on native title land in the Central desert, Northern Territory. This provides different constructs of closeness and how we interpret the public-private divide.

Material Form:

We have created three contrasting installations. By mapping this series of social interactions in a fluid dynamic the results have prompted and built the form. The chosen medium of silicon coated LED rope lighting is then woven together using different weaves, coded according to type of interaction observed.

Woven strands of light creating an analogy of the social fabric of place.