CityPILOTS launched in Hobart's real and virtual spaces

Published on 25 May 2022

EIGHT temporary public artworks will be installed throughout the City of Hobart as part of the new CityPILOTS program.

The first four artworks, some already visible around the city, include projects by David Campbell, Matt Daniels, Tom O’Hern, and Margaret Woodward working with Camilla Brueton.

“It’s really exciting to see more of these experimental art installations featuring throughout the Hobart area,” Community Culture and Events Committee Chair, Councillor Dr Zelinda Sherlock said. “This is really building on the success of earlier projects like our 2021 Hobart Current exhibition, and the Crowther Reinterpreted project.

“Public installations like this really open up a community conversation by giving us an avenue to shift perspective and see things differently. Art is so important to the heart of any community, and that’s why these projects provide so much value to the City of Hobart.”

In 2019 the City of Hobart's Public Art Framework was endorsed by Council. One of the new strategic directions of this project was “Experimental", with an emphasis on exploratory, temporary public artworks. Previous projects of this nature have demonstrated significant public engagement with the temporary art installations.

Hobart has a talented pool of arts practitioners interested in doing works in public space, but the opportunities to build understanding, experience and a portfolio of these kinds of work are limited. CityPILOTS offer eight artists (or small artist teams) an opportunity to explore and experiment in the spaces of Hobart, developing works to intrigue, delight and challenge city users. Artists will build capacity while drawing on the spaces, places, resources and experience of the City of Hobart. This project has the overarching aim of enabling artists to obtain further commissions in the future.

The four initial works will see Hobartians enjoying a digital civic clock that draws upon real time data (Matt Daniels); stumbling upon gold plaques speaking of a different Hobart in the future (David Campbell); cycling their way from the Sun to Pluto and back along the Intercity Cycleway (Tom O’Hern), and embarking on a series of poetic navigations through Hobart within the City’s new fully digital, three dimensional version itself – The Greater Hobart Digital Twin.

The Digital Twin is a searchable, interactive, data-rich, three dimensional "map" of Greater Hobart. Like a sophisticated version of Google's street view, it has been being built from drone and still footage that establishes a three dimensional environment a user can "fly" through.

The second round of artworks will appear around Hobart from July onwards.

CityPILOTS has been made possible through the Federal Government’s Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand Fund, otherwise known as the RISE Fund.

Artworks:

David Campbell. Future memorials, 2045. Ten anodised aluminium panels.

Matt Daniels MID-TOWN-CLOCK, 2022. Generative digital clock, installed at The Loop, Hobart.

Tom O’Hern Foreverever, 2021. Paving paint. Signage. Intercity Cycle Way, Hobart.

Margaret Woodward and Camilla Brueton. moss.quarry.plaque, 2022. Digital media, sound and text installed within the City of Hobart Digital Twin.

A preview of the first four artworks is available on the City of Hobart YouTube channel.