SOLDERING IN SPACE

Soldering in Space is an experimental public program presented by Blindside Mobile, Tilt Industrial Design and ZOME.
This debut program asks; as emerging artists, how does a studio-based practice evolve into a public art practice? How can we experiment with scale, materiality, user-experience and public space? As public art professionals, how can we hold space for imagination and enchantment? How can we effectively collaborate with artists and built environment practitioners to raise the bar as a collective?

Over this three-week program, Blindside will invite a group of emerging artists to provoke the possibilities of art in the public realm, abandoning compliance, concreteness and constructibility. Artists will focus primarily on the concepts that govern the work, experimenting with the adaptation of their art practice inside ZOME by geo-planting and activating original artworks and prototypes of their own in AR space. Realising works through a digital interface will allow for projects that disrupt the limits of medium, material, scale and complexity.

Acting as advisors throughout the program, a troupe of three public art professionals with expertise in engineering, fabrication, industrial design and architecture will riff with the artists each week in a recorded video forum. These discussions will act as witness to the creative process as each artist plays havoc with the preconceived notions of how art interfaces with buildings, gardens, streetscapes, sky, earth and beyond.

Soldering in Space offers both emerging artists and public art professionals an opportunity to discuss and challenge the established norms. It is anticipated that, through uninhibited play in AR space and weekly discussions, this ‘public art expansion-pack’, will serve to broaden our current understanding of the ‘public art canvas’.

The program was recorded in early October and launched online in February 2024 via Blindside MOBILE, allowing global audiences to learn, discover and join the journey.

Session 1 Liz Lewis

Session Date: 10 October, 2023

Mediator: Liz Lewis, Tilt Industrial Design

Participants: Ella Pininta, Rosa Spring Voss, Augusta Vinall Richardson, Vivienne De Mattais, Georgia Cheesman, Laura Clauscen

Task: Public art briefs are traditionally constrained to a site/location (for example a forecourt, a wall, a ceiling detail, a glass façade). This provides an artist with a canvas within a public setting but is still quite constrained in how an artist can respond.

Using ZOME as an expressive tool, consider how an artwork may move conceptually through space. Choose a location anywhere - (e.g.the beach, an apartment building, a shopping centre, a train station, a cemetery) and explore how an idea can move across, around and through a site.

Questions you may ask yourself - Can an artwork move through different planes and levels? How can a story be told in different mediums (physical, sound, textures, smells) Can an artwork grow and move from underground carpark to an entry foyer to a rooftop? Can it move from water to land? Does the artwork wrap, float, stitch or bend to the site?

Session 2 | Jen Berean

Session Date: 18 October, 2023

Mediator: Jen Berean, Monash Art Projects

Participants: Ella Pininta, Rosa Spring Voss, Roslyn Orlando Moir, Vivienne De Mattais, Georgia Cheesman, Laura Clauscen

Task: The consideration of materials is crucial in the production of public art. Aside from the practical considerations (durability, maintainability, sustainability, cost) what are different ways we can consider materials of public art?

Propose and artwork that explores the possibilities of materials in the public realm. Do the materials integrate and reflect the environments that they are sited in? Do they intentionally contrast with their environment? Do they change over time? Do they invite participation?

Session 3 | Mike Hewson

Session Date: 23 October, 2023

Mediator: Mike Hewson, Public Artist

Participants: Rosa Spring Voss, Vivienne De Mattais, Georgia Cheesman, Laura Clauscen

Task: Look around the place and look for non-art things that are being built and see if you can come up with a plan to hijack the money used to build that thing...you still have to build the thing in a way that meets all the functional requirements of that thing...but it can ALSO be an artwork. AR a mock up of your project.

Special thanks to Theodore Wohng for partnering with Blindside ARI and sharing the ZOME AR app, ultimately helping us guide the program.

Thanks to Tilt Industrial Design for collaborating with Blindside on this program.