Yesterday we went to see the exhibition 'Out of Hand: Materialising the Digital' at the Museum of Applied Arts and Design (MAAS) the Powerhouse Sydney by its official name located at the end point of the new Goods Line a planted walkway leading from Central Station.
The first work you meet as you enter the exhibition is a large pallet of printed A4 paper stack in a square with a small drinking cup poised delicately on top almost inviting you to pick it up- except, anticipating that temptation, it has been pinioned to the pallet below. ‘Who This Am’ by Kijin Park consists of the 60871 pages of machine code it took to print the 3D polyactic acid filament cup. This work is a highly engaging start to the cornucopia of delights to follow, too many to cover here but the photos give an idea of the range of disciplines represented from art, sculpture, pottery and fashion to furniture making and weaving. I was excited, intrigued and provoked in many different ways by so much of it. A single visit is not enough to absorb the full import of it all but the striking works, the design of the space, and clarity of the documentation make sure you are hooked and immersed enough to want to come back.
Congratulations to Powerhouse Sydney for taking this bold and inventive project on, at a time when your future is threatened by many forces circling around. It is a brilliant outcome to what must have required extraordinary determination and effort. The exhibition itself is based upon a predecessor of similar name- the ‘digital’ in the title is ‘post-digital’ in the 2013 exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design, developed by Ronald Labaco. The Sydney exhibition is even more ambitious in respect of the context: it places today’s digital technological advances in line with the inheritance from major historical developments using the Museum’s own collection in a prominent and thoroughly integrated way- Utzon’s original spherical model for the Sydney Opera House and the Mousetrap making machine by A.W Standfield & Co are highlights. I was especially taken with the exhibit of the piece of Babbage’s Difference Engine alongside a portrait of Jacquard, inventor of the automatic weaving loom, woven using 24000 punched cards, a copy of which was kept by Babbage on the wall of his drawing room.
Together the work of around 60 artists, architects, designers, scientists, technologists experimenting with many kinds of materials and processes, exemplifies the multi-disciplinary nature of innovative creativity and the historical precedents that make today’s digitally created artefacts and systems possible. We were privileged to have a guided tour by Matthew Connell, principal curator who has played a key role in the concept and realisation of this event. It opened last September and goes on until June this year. There is a catalogue – no it is much more than that, fascinating essays by the key players in the story, followed by high quality illustrations and documentation of the exhibits. If you are not able see the exhibition, get the catalogue! The small selection of photos included here don't do the exhibition justice and they are not intended to signify any preference on my part.
Comments