Live multimedia art installation: Fed Square

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: Melbourne Writers Festival

Under the artistic direction of David Pledger, not yet it’s difficult (NYID) has become one of Melbourne’s most ground breaking arts organisations. Their new project for 2010 is a site-specific multi-media installation project called HOIST. During the day it will engage the public as a participation art piece, and by night it will be a mobile film in Melbourne’s public centre, Federation Square. It will be installed from 27 August – 9 September 2010, with the official launch of HOIST on 28 August 2010.

HOIST builds on NYID’s most recent work focused upon the suburban, the 2008 installation The Meaning of Moorabbin Is Open for Inspection (MIAF 2008). The centre piece for HOIST is the everyday object of the ‘hills hoist’ rotary line. Using film, everyday objects and text, HOIST reflects and relates to ideas of the suburban and suburbia by attaching items to the hoist and asking photographers, digital and visual artists as well as Melbourne Writers Festival authors to participate and ‘peg’ something to the line. HOIST also invites walkers-by to attach items to the hoist – and tell their own tales of the ‘burbs onto postcards as well as video-recorded in a makeshift ‘laundry’ next to the hoist. A selection of these confessions-to-camera screened episodically on the Federation Square big screen as well as on a dedicated website.

By night, the day’s collection of materials will be removed from the clothesline and archived. In their place, white sheets hung off the four sides will act as projection screens for desert_suburbs_city, Pledger’s timeless road movie depicting a journey from the central deserts to the suburban streets of Melbourne. The film will light up the HOIST giving the impression of an oversized movie-mobile – suspending images of the Australian landscape aloft Fed Square. As a visual counterpoint, the film will be simultaneously projected onto Federation Square’s big screen.

As part of the Melbourne Writers Festival, along with the installation there will be an Artist Talk with David Pledger via live phone /video conference talking with Peter Eckersall at the NGV on Sunday 29 August at 4pm, as well as a book launch of Making Contemporary Theatre- International Rehearsal Processes, survey of innovative rehearsal practices from the world’s leading theatre companies. Robyn Archer will officially launch the book at Feddish, Saturday 28 August at 1pm, along with and Peter Eckersall will talk through his chapter on NYID’s past project Blowbac.

Pledger says, “HOIST hopes to provoke new ways of thinking about how we relate to the suburbs from the point-of-view of the city. The iconic Hills Hoist is in every other suburban backyard. By relocating it to Federation Square, and using it as a receptacle of images and memory, the project asks us to re-frame and re-connect with this everyday object and by doing so, to feel the reach of the suburban into the heart of the city.”

Escaping the suburbs when he was 17, Pledger has gained wide acclaim with his work nationally and internationally as an interdisciplinary artist. His work has been made and presented in Australia, Asia, Europe, the UK and the USA. NYID is a Melbourne-based international arts company that was founded in 1995 by Pledger, Peter Eckersall and Paul Jackson. The company has produced over 40 projects, and specialise in presenting work that is diverse and provocative. NYID is a key organisation of the Australia Council for the Arts.

August 27 - September 9, 2010. Free