SCULPTURE INSTALLATION ACTIVITY

Cameras will be provided to school groups to record aspects of the installation. The film will be collected by gallery venue staff to be processed and printed. Two sets of prints will be developed, one will be given to the school group and the other will be sent to the artists. A number of images and projects will be selected for display on the Brine Obelus website. http://www.brineobelus.com.au

• Take a photo that includes all of the obelisks, then select a section of the installation and take several pictures from different views. By moving the viewfinder you are making decisions about what to include and exclude in your photo composition. To help you make those decisions, cut a rectangular hole in card and move it across the installation site. This will help you make interesting compositions. Now...Take a photo of a friend’s head and shoulders in the foreground and the obelisks in the background.

• Record evididence of salinity within you environment. Note the location, time and date.
Look for any other man-made objects (series of electricity poles, fence posts etc) in the landscape which look similar or reminds you of Brine Obelus. Make a photographic record.

• Using your classmates create your own ‘human ’ obelisks which traverse the landscape. Using a piece of string, space each student (approx. 30 paces between) in a straight line.

• Which way should the human obelisks face? Make a photographic record. Using a camera on a tripod, students could photograph a series of images where the human obelus grows in number with each image frame. There are many variations on this idea. Make sure that you have the sun behind you when you take the photo.

Suggestion: Set up an exhibition of your documentary photographs of the installation together with your comments and responses to the installation. Design the exhibition presentation keeping in mind the display space you have chosen. Who would you like to invite to see the work you have done? How will you describe your project in the invitation or announcement?

COMPOSITION

Before you visit the installation site
Make a viewfinder to help you compose photographs and even to help with your selection of areas you wish to draw.
Cut rigid, black mount card to the template provided.

Place the template onto the mount card and trace around it using a sharp pencil.
Use a steel rule and stencil cutting knife. Cut out the internal and external edges.

Using the viewfinder at the installation site
The viewfinder helps you select and see a view by framing the area you are looking at.
With one eye closed, hold the viewfinder in one hand and place it against your other open eye.
Select the view you wish to frame.
Move the viewfinder away from your eye slowly and observe how the area you have been viewing fills the frame.
Repeat several times focusing on different areas and subjects.
You can make quick thumbnail sketches of you viewfinder view at different distances from your eye.
The viewfinder is also a great tool to help you select your photograph composition.

Brine Obelus uses shape and surface repetition to create rhythmic surfaces in the landscape. You will be able to use the viewfinder to select areas of the installation that highlight the Elements and Principles of composition. Look at the installation examining the artists’ use of Elements and Principles. Note down your observations.

SCULPTURE INSTALLATION ACTIVITY

Science and art
Can one inform the other?

The following investigation is designed to encourage you to experience and make observations regarding salinity and its impact in your immediate surroundings and region through scientific methods and arts practice. Both will involve you in visual observation, recording, hypothesising, analysis and creative problem solving. Use the processes in the activity from the Tammin-Alcoa website and integrate drawing observations and recording in your field-notes.

Document in your drawings or photographs signs of human intervention in the landscape. Look for signs of intervention previous to European colonisation. Adapt images from several sources (observation drawings, photocopies of web research, scientific findings, photographs) as a basis for interpreting a personal theme or idea in an installation of your own.

What other obelisk type of objects can you identify in your surroundings? Devise a ritual relating to these and construct and embellish an accompanying costume for a ceremony of your design.
What culture will you draw your references from?