Artists use water technology to change public space

Tracing place is an exhibition that will transform Little Malop street for Geelong Design week with enormous digital projections onto a screen of water mist. The unique technology represents a new way to think about how art is interacted with and designed for public space. Tracing place is created by Michaela McHugh and Lucy Allinson who use this technology to showcase their investigations into the collision of the natural and built environment. The work utilises the large water screen and surround sound system in Geelong’s Market Square in lt Malop Street. McHugh and Allinson have created an immersive world out of the mall’s archways and potted plants, which act as a backdrop for their moving image and audio works. The four-meter-high wall of water creates a wonderous engagement with the artists' vision that people can touch and walk through, perfect for the summer nights of the Geelong Design Festival.

Allinson and McHugh are both Geelong Region and Surfcoast artists and develop their work through field research in the local community. Michaela’s work involves sourcing objects which she finds and re-interprets through photography, installation and sculptural pastiche. Macro and micro elements of the natural world will be presented to passers-by, juxtaposed against the city skyline, a dramatic vision of nature which is both playful and overbearing at times. Lucy Allinson draws maps of the local environment and audio surveys which she combines to reflect on our experience of space and in turn reveal the beauty in the overlap of urban and natural environments. The experience of tracing place will be driven by Lucy and Mchaela's sound recordings from around the Bellarine peninsula including sonic investigations into recent thunderstorms. These recognisable sound events act to draw people towards the work and connect both of their interpretations of nature and space.

The water projection screen is the brainchild of Collide Public Arts and Digital Artist Joel Zika who have been experimenting with the technology for the past decade. The initiative builds on the work Collide and Zika have been creating public arts and technology sector around Australia and New Zealand. Production of the work was made possible through a Creative Communities grant from the Geelong City Council assisted by Geelong’s Platform Arts Space where Allinson is an artist in residence.?

‘With the tracing place project, we saw an opportunity to work with two emerging artists who already had an incredible connection to both the natural and the urban side of Geelong. The work posed a unique design challenge for us to create an experience of traversing the land in a way that was also tactile and immersive,’

Joel Zika, Collide’s Digital Art Director.

Lucy Allinson is engaging with Geelong Design week in a separate work where she takes participants on a ‘soundwalk’ of the city. The collaboration with Collide Public Arts has allowed her to build on her observations of the city in new and poetic ways.??

‘It’s exciting to take the work we’ve been doing in galleries and combine it with my audio to produce something which is really different,’ Lucy Allinson

Tracing place is a work which celebrates our experiences of nature and the city, dramatic and beautiful on many different scales. McHugh and Allinson play with control, conjuring up images in water and thunderous sounds to create a storm in the mall.

Details

The show runs 8:30pm – 10pm?

Friday March 18th and Saturday March 19th

Lt Malop St, Geelong

(outside the Market Square entrance)

Facebook Event:

https://fb.me/e/24F4qmfaG

Artist Details

Lucy Allinson [email protected]

https://www.instagram.com/lha_finearts/

Michaela McHugh [email protected]

https://www.instagram.com/mchughmichaela/

Collide Public Arts

https://www.collidepublicart.com/

For Media Enquiries contact?

Britt Giacomin <[email protected]>