ADA
Where: Cultural Forecourt, South Bank
When: 15 – 24 March 2024
Time: Various
Cost: Adult $10; Concession $7.50, Family (2A+2C) $30
https://www.worldsciencefestival.com.au/event-program/brisbane/ada
ADA by Karina Smigla-Bobinski is a groundbreaking international artwork, situated at the intersection of art and computer science. ADA is an enormous floating orb and interactive sculpture that audiences are invited to pull, push and move within the white room she inhabits. The artwork engages us in one of the most primal forms of communication – mark making.
Materially, ADA is an analogue sphere of plastic, gas and black charcoal sticks. As a kinetic sculpture, she moves around and marks the walls, floor and ceiling that encase it. Dense stories accumulate with each human interaction. Named after Ada Lovelace, an early visionary in the development of computers, ADA mesmerises and challenges viewers by enticing their touch and physical movement.
TECTONIC RESONANCE
Where: Pelican Ponds, Cultural Precinct
When: 15 – 24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Tectonic Resonance is a 3D-printed sculpture and sound work which explores parallels between ancient geological formations and new modes of fabrication.
This complex and innovative form has been created with emerging technologies, including 3D printed sandstone processes and artificial intelligence (AI). Tectonic Resonance explores human manufacturing, naturally occurring phenomena and the potential intersections between technological and earth formations.
DRAWING ON COMPLEXITY: EXPERIMENT 9
Where: Cultural Forecourt, South Bank
When: 15 – 24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Drawing on Complexity: Experiment 9 is an immersive installation that will evolve over the festival.
Artist Briony Barr invites you to become an ‘agent’ and participate in this drawing system by applying colourful tape across 3D surfaces. All agents must first learn a simple algorithm before they may contribute freely. The appearance of the work will change over time, and as more and more agents contribute, patterns will appear. This is referred to as ‘emergence’ when many smaller, simple interactions and feedback influence new contributions and the development of bigger, complex patterns.
The artwork will be viewable during all open hours, but open for visitors to participate in at the following times:
Friday 15 March, 9am – 1pm, 3pm – 5pm, 6pm – 9pm
Saturday 16 March, 10am – 12:30pm, 2:30pm – 5pm, 6:30pm – 9pm
Sunday 17 March, 10am – 12:30pm, 2:30pm – 5pm, 6:30pm – 9pm
Wednesday 20 March, 9am – 1pm, 3:30pm – 6:30pm
Thursday 21 March, 9am – 1pm, 3:30pm – 6:30pm
Friday, 22 March, 9am – 1pm, 3pm – 5pm, 6pm – 9pm
Saturday 23 March, 10am – 12:30pm, 2:30pm – 5pm, 6:30pm – 9pm
Sunday 24 March, 10am – 12:30pm, 2pm – 4pm
GHOST NETS OF PORMPURAAW
Where: Whale Mall, Queensland Museum
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Pormpuraaw Art and Culture Centre is a flourishing First Nations creative hub on the western coast of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula.
For a decade, the Pormpuraaw artist community has deftly crafted stunning sculptures out of salvaged fishing waste from the Gulf of Carpentaria. Seaborne detritus such as fishing line, nets and floats – known as ‘ghost nets’ -travel thousands of kilometres across international waters and threaten ocean ecologies by indiscriminately tangling marine life. Many species threatened by this pollution hold important cultural significance and connection to ancestors. The ghost nets are retrieved from the shoreline and recycled by Pormpuraaw artists. These sculptures are synonymous with an artistic movement of several First Nations communities in Queensland, and many are exhibited and collected internationally. The centre in Pormpuraaw provides local artists with opportunities to export their work. It also acts as a community ‘Keeping Place’ of local artefacts, photographs, languages, stories and art, preserving them for future generations.
SIMULATED SELVES
Where: Cultural Forecourt, South Bank
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Simulated Selves by art-science practitioners Svenja Kratz and Bill Hart is a meta exploration of self, artificial intelligence (AI) and creativity. Sitting in a room of AI-generated imagery, two AI-generated human forms are engaged in a conversation. The digital avatars on each figure portray each artist’s likeness and their dialogue philosophically questions machine versus human forms of intelligence.
This is a speculative artwork that responds to recent AI developments both technically and conceptually. It is now possible to create a ‘simulated self’, an AI that can operate indefinitely and independently of the original human model. The artists playfully explore their own autonomous digital doppelgangers and invite viewers into this conversation. The two sculptural mannequins feature details cast from bodies and while referencing the likeness of the artists, the sculptures are intended to look awkward. This design references the current limitations and quirks of generative AI systems which often have difficulty accurately representing fine body features like hands and limbs.
MAKE YOUR SELFIE A SANDWICH
Where: Level 1, Queensland Museum
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Tackling the big questions around food futures against the backdrop of climate change, Sue Loveday presents an animated installation bringing the voices of regional people to the city. The collaborative artwork showcases the outcomes of an interactive art space, created for the Queensland regional tour of the World Science Festival in 2023. Sue invited participants to join in on a ‘making conversion’, where they responded to the question of, “why do scientists think we will eat more bugs and seaweed in the future?”. Participants contemplated what sort of sandwich they would be in the future by collaging ingredients from a bespoke shopping list to create wearable messages for a selfie.
SCHOOLS CHALLENGE PROJECT: OUR FUTURE, OUR PLANET
Where: Level 1, Queensland Museum
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
With primary school students amongst our most passionate environmentalists, this animated work reflects the Oakleigh Primary School students’ concerns about the planet and their dreams for a brighter future. The work features six animated collages created by the students in collaboration with the artist each exploring a different environmental threat including fire, flood, drought and deforestation. Surrounding the animation are hanging stencilled silhouettes of young environmental protestors waving slogans conceived by the students. The animation with its sounds of protest invites viewers to walk into the work and discover the source of their concerns.
Our Future, Our Planet is part of The Schools Challenge Project which brings a youthful lens to the festival’s art/science program. Students from four selected Queensland schools are paired up with local artists to bring their creative and inquisitive artwork ideas to life.
SCHOOLS CHALLENGE PROJECT: INTERWOVEN
Where: Level 1, Queensland Museum
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Created by the Dutton Park State School students and community in collaboration with designer and artist Lucy Reid, Woven is a series of sculptural woven pods which provide homes to an array of imagined, bioluminescent creatures. The work draws inspiration from the forms nature’s creatures craft to live in, from nests to cocoons to burrows, and reflects their ingenuity and strategies. While the pods offer safety to their inhabitant creatures, bioluminescence provides the creatures with the potential to communicate, lure prey or confuse predators.
SCHOOLS CHALLENGE PROJECT: SPONTANEOUS MUTATIONS
Where: Level 1, Queensland Museum
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
Exploring a shared interest in food and agriculture, artist Elizabeth Willing creates a sculptural work with the students of Boonah State High that engages with some of the possibilities and dilemmas of in vitro meat production.
Spontaneous Mutations is a laser cut, stainless steel table with a blown glass udder beneath, the four supporting legs shifting between furniture and fauna. The table design, including the laser cut motif, was collaboratively developed between the students and Willing. Through the visual languages of the lab, the farm, and the industrial kitchen, the artwork explores the nuances of the body as product and consumer.
SCHOOLS CHALLENGE PROJECT: RECIPROCITY
Where: Level 1, Queensland Museum
When: 15-24 March 2024
Cost: Free
This decorated boomerang sculpture developed out of a yarn between artist Kim Walmsley and the students exploring their curiosities about the dynamics of time and air. With the upright Boomerang form also suggestive of sundial, the work if a contemplation on the forces of nature and their role in human tools and existence.
Without key elements such as air, water, earth, fire, tree and time, we would not exist. Each play a significant role in creating and maintaining balance. As we humans do. In the words of Chinchilla Traditional Owner Conrad Bauwens who was engaged in this work, “we look after nature; nature will look after us”
