Burnt Lakes; Sheet Music

Sheet Music and Burnt Lakes are two works created for Graphic Material, a research-focused exhibition held at the UTS Gallery from August 3-September 3, 2010. The question posed through the exhibition was: How are new technologies transforming graphic design? The exhibition explored the impact of new materials and digital fabrication technologies on graphic design practice. As a discipline, graphic design's engagement with technology has traditionally been through screen-based outcomes (websites, interactive media etc). Graphic Material sought to examine how this engagement might be materialised in physical forms. Sheet Music explores the potential of electrically conductive inks to transform a piece of graphic design into an electronic component. Printed with silver ink these two posters work as aerials picking up variations in the room's electromagnetic field caused by gallery visitors. Electronics enclosed in the wall convert these variations to sound, allowing participants to 'play' the posters by moving their hands in front of them. Sheet Music was a collaboration with sound artist Ian Stevenson. Burnt Lakes is a meditation on the effects of climate change on Australia's drought-ravaged landscape. A computer generated model of each lake was created and then sliced approximately 50 times to create a three dimensional bathymetric map. Each slice was then individually cut through a single sheet of paper by a laser cutter set to its maximum power output, singeing the edges of the paper in the process. Both pieces sought to expand the domain of graphic design practice through a cross-disciplinary engagement with new materials and fabrication technologies