New Technology in Multi-Sensory Public
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MULTI-SENSORY SITES OF EXPERIENCE: PUBLIC ART PRACTICE IN A SECULAR SOCIETY SUBMITTED IN FULL FULFILLMENT REQUIRED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY FACULTY OF THE CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN RMIT UNIVERSITY Anton Glenn Hasell B. Ec, Dip. Ed, B.F.A, P-G Dip F.A, M.F.A September 2002 1 Abstract Western secular societies have come to celebrate the individual within his or her community. Secular society has been shaped to fit the maximum freedoms and rights that are compatible within the compromise that communal life impose upon its members. Earlier communities in both Europe and Asia were bounded by religious practices that privileged the communal perspective over that of the individual. Rituals brought people together and the places in which these rituals were enacted, the temples and cathedrals so central to communal life, were places of complex and powerful multi-sensory experience. It is within such stimulating experience that people recognize themselves as vibrant parts to a greater whole. Artists who work in public-space commissioned works, such as myself, are repeatedly invited to create works of art that signify and celebrate the forms and images that bring the community together. Such communal-building work attempts to countervail the drive to ever greater individual freedoms in secular society. Artists are placed in a difficult position. The most recent developments in computer technology have been used to re-invent the bell. The reinvented bell has become a fundamental element in new bell-sculpture installation works. This thesis develops a context for the use of bells in contemporary public-space design. New bell designs and bell installation works enact similar community-building experiences for people in secular societies as they have done for religious bound communities. The experience of the bell within the overall sensory experience available in temples and churches can be just as powerful a communal experience for citizens of secular societies. It is the contention of the author that such multi-sensory experiential sites of public-space art offer the community opportunities to participate and collaborate in community-building experiences. It is the mystery and wonder of everyday life that such gatherings celebrate. Rather than culture being understood, in the nineteenth-century Western tradition as activities and achievements that separate the cultured from the uncouth, culture can be felt as those acts of communication citizens make between themselves. This thesis advances the position for developing community-building ‘sites of experience’ as places in which the public can gather together and experience itself as a community. Places where people can recognise themselves as a community able to share emotional experiences with each other. A number of 'sites of experience' installation works are considered in detail. Those of the author have been designed to be sacred sites in which everyday ritual and feeling is shared and celebrated. They were inspired by the philosophy put forward in this thesis, and are examples of possible fruitful directions for public-space design. The author believes that such sites of experience are fundamental to the evolution of an ‘inclusive’ secular society in Western Civilisation. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to especially thank Dr Neil McLachlan and Dr Peter Downton of the Architecture and Design Department of RMIT University for their enthusiastic supervision and advice offered to me throughout my Ph.D research program. Their guidance has been invaluable to my research and I am much indebted for their generous and kind support. In particular, I would like to acknowledge and thank Dr Neil McLachlan who was a director of Australian Bell until 2008. This research has been greatly assisted by the commissioning of the Federation Bells Installation by the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. I am grateful to both its artistic director Jonathon Mills, without whom this project would not have come about, and the Festival manager Ian Roberts and staff for their support over the four years Neil and I undertook this bell installation commission. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of my wife Georgina and children Samuel and Matilda. This research absorbed large tracts of time which otherwise would have been shared with them, and I thank them for their forebearance. 3 Declaration: Except where due acknowledgment has been made, this work is that of the candidate alone. Signed: Dated Dated Anton Hasell 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 Nau Lehr 1983, p.60 Figure 2 pien chung, Lehr 1983, p.60 Figure 3 Marquis Yi pien chung, Lehr 1983, p.60 Figure 4 The Yongle Bell, Beijing, Postcard, p.61 Figure 5 Ming Dragon bell, Hasell, p.60 Figure 6 Powerhouse bell, museum, p.61 Figure 7 Beijing museum bell spectrogram, p.67 Figure 8 Beijing Museum bell, Hasell, p.61 Figure 9 Hoko-ji bell spectogram, p.66 Figure 10 Emile Bell Korea, Hasell, p.61 Figure 11 Emile spectrogram, p .64 Figure 12 Pulguk-sa temple, korea,Hasell, p.62 Figure 13 Pulguk-sa Bell, Korea, Hasell, p.62 Figure 14 Pulguk-sa spectrogram, p.64 Figure 15 Dotaku, Lehr 1983, p.62 Figure 16 Zhong bell, Yang Bato 1982, p.62 Figure 17 Hoko-ji bell, Japan,Hasell, p.62 Figure 18 Cowra World peace bell, Hasell, p.63 Figure 19 Cowra peace bell spectrogram, p.66 Figure 20 Wat phra That Doi Suthep bell,Hasell, p.63 Figure 21 Doi Suthep spectrogram, p.65 Figure 22 Thailand bells, Hasell, p.63 Figure 23 Small Thailand bell spectrogram, p.65 Figure 24 Powerhouse Museum bell spectrogram, p.67 Figure 25 Conical horse bells Iran, Lehr 1983, p.85 Figure 26 Sugar-loaf bell, Lehr 1983, p.85 Figure 27 Beehive bell, Lehr 1983, p.85 Figure 28 Optimised hemony strickle pattern, p.86 Figure 29 Hemony bell design, Lehr 1983, p.86 Figure 30 Australian Bell casting Hemony bell,Hasell, p.86 Figure 31 Lehr & Ausbell’s Harmonic bells, Hasell, p.87 Figure 32 Hemony bell spectrogram, p.87 Figure 33 Whitechapel bell foundry, Hasell, p.88 Figure 34 Eijsbouts major third bell, postcard, p.88 Figure 35 Tilly Asten Bell, Hasell, p.109 Figure 36 Swan Bell Tower, Hasell, p.109 Figure 37 Helyer Korean bells, Bandt 2001,p.109 Figure 38 Handbells, Hasell, p.127 Figure 39 Armageddon bell, Hasell, p.127 Figure 40 Raincatcher, Hasell, p.127 Figure 41 Federation Bells, Hasell, p.128 Figure 42 Orchestral bells, Hasell, p.128 Figure 43 Federation Bells, Hasell, p.129 Figure 44 MSO Edwards, Hasell, p.129 5 Figure 45 Testing MSO bells, Hasell, p.129 Figure 46 Gates of Day , Hasell, p.129 Figure 47 Weary Dunlop, Hasell, p.146 Figure 48 Loughborough carillon, Hasell p.146 Figure 49 Wellington carillon, Hasell, p,146 Figure 50 Serra’s Tilted Arc, Gablik 1998, p.147 Figure 51 Cherry’s police model, Hasell, p.147 Figure 52 Robertson Swan, Vaults, p.147 Figure 53 Table comparing Korean Bells, p.51 Audio CD Track Contents: Track 1. Doi Suthep bell, Chiang Mai (Thailand) Track 2. Hoko-ji bell (Japan) Track 3. Beijing Bell Museum bell (China) Track 4. Federation Bells playing (selection) Track 5. Carillon playing by Tim Hurd, Wellington Carillon (New Zealand) Track 6. Change-ringing bells Swan Bell Tower (Australia) Track 7. Australian Bell's three tone bell. (Australia) Track 8. Small Buddhist bells rung randomly Golden Mount temple (Thailand) Track 9. The bells of Notre Dame in Paris (France) Track10. Powerhouse Museum Ming dynasty bell (Australia) Track 11. Pulguk-sa bell (Sth Korea) Emile bell (Sth Korea) Track 12. Brenton Broadstock's 'Gates of Day' (selection) Track 13. Emile bell, (South Korea) Track 14. Eijsbouts Major third bell (Netherlands) Track 15. Eijsbout's Harmonic bell (Netherlands) 6 Track 16. Australian Bell's 'Hemony' bell (Australia) Track 17. Australian Bell's Harmonic bells (Australia) Track 18. Marquis Yi pien chung replica, played by Neil McLachlan (China) CHAPTER HEADINGS Introduction Chapter 1 The Experiential nature of cultural expression Chapter 2 The codification of cultural experience Chapter 3 The Asian Bell tradition Chapter 4 The European bell tradition Chapter 5 Bells and Multi-sensory Installation Chapter 6 Centenary of Federation Bells projects. Chapter 7 The Victoria Police Memorial Installation Conclusion Appendix 1 Glossary of terms Reference Listing 7 INTRODUCTION This thesis has been written over a period that has coincided with my working on two major public-space installations. Both installations were undertaken in collaboration with other artists. Whilst I began this research thesis prior to being commissioned for the Federation Bells projects and the Victoria Police Memorial, they have enabled the development of ideas concerning public-space artwork that I advocate in this thesis. My practice as a sculptor over the past twenty years has in the last decade primarily focussed on public space commissioned sculptures and installations for local communities in Victoria. The issues that this research thesis will discuss have arisen from my experience as a sculptor. These issues arise from a fundamental contradiction of expectation I see facing the artist working in public space art in contemporary Western societies. Artists like myself, who work in commissioned public space sculpture, are asked to create images and objects that clarify a community's sense of itself. Our work is hoped to be both a focal point for community sentiment and an icon around which it is intended that the community will unite. An example of this expectation is shown in a sculpture brief from Nillumbik Shire Council. The brief calls for "The construction of a public art work [that] will provide an enriching experience for the local community, and must be in keeping with the new vision for Eltham Town Centre as well as taking into account the artistic ethos of Eltham.” (Eltham sculpture brief from Nillumbik Shire Council, 1997, attachment C) The artist is called upon to create a cultural experience and a symbol of their common identity.