moss.quarry.plaque is a public art commission for the City of Hobart, installed within the City of Hobart’s’ Digital Twin. The artwork is a collaboration between Margaret Woodward (Australia) and Camilla Brueton (Wales). As artists and writers we tangle our voices and words to intercept the mesh of geocodes and data sets, woven algorithmically in the city’s digital twin. The City of Hobart’s Digital Twin is a searchable, interactive, three dimensional “map” of Greater Hobart. The Digital Twin is a data-rich environment built from many different government and private data sets, used for planning the city’s infrastructure, traffic, land use and more. We are the first artists to work with the planning team to ‘install’ an artwork in this environment.
moss.quarry.plaque is the trace of our exchanges held during three synchronous walks in our respective cities, nipaluna/Hobart and in Caerdydd/Cardiff, Wales during 2022. We use a technique of call and response developed for a previous walking collaboration, to both geo-locate us while walking as well as a tool for writing. The artwork is comprised of a number of elements installed the digital twin, including message ‘packets’ outlining our walks, digital text plaques, and a sound score to be read and heard along the route of our walks.
Local nipaluna/Hobart audiences are also invited to retrace our digital footsteps in real life, using their smart phone versions of the Digital twin website.
moss.quarry.plaque can be accessed at this url: https://au.opencitiesplanner.bentley.com/cityofhobart/citypilots
Credits
Moss.quarry.plaque is a collaboration by Margaret Woodward and Camilla Brueton. Partly made in nipaluna /Hobart and partly in Cardiff, Wales.
While we walked we remembered those whose footfall we followed; ancestors, invaders, descendants, immigrants and neighbours – ever mindful of stone, soil and moss underfoot and the memories and threads that entangle our cities' lives.
While walking on palawa country, we acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional and original owners of this land, the muwinina people, and pay respect to those that have passed before us. We acknowledge today's Tasmanian Aboriginal people who are the custodians of this land and whose land was never ceded.
In the research, production and installation of moss.quarry.plaque we wish to thank and acknowledge support from Bek Verrier, Nunami Sculthorpe-Green, Euan McAleece (Sound mixing), and Wendy Rimon. In particular we want to thank City of Hobart staff Jude Abell, Emily Brown, Craig Garth and Robert Stevenson for your collaboration and welcoming us into in the world of the digital twin. To the Wild Ways Walking residency presented by The Museum of Loss and Renewal and the Walking Library, for facilitating our first 'pilot' for walking together.
Hosted by: City of Hobart, Tasmania