SYDNEY.- A new installation by leading Australian artist Craig Walsh is taking shape inside the Powerhouse Museum. Artefact H10515 is an abstract life form designed to disrupt and expand visitor expectations of a museum and its collections, evoking intrigue and contemplation.

Living within a large museum-like showcase, Artefact H10515 is highly responsive; moving and breathing within its physical boundaries and feeding on digital sources supplied from a website, artefact.powerhousemuseum.com.

This content comprises images, videos and sound files from the Powerhouse Museum’s own collection, other public collections as well as private collectors. Artefact H10515 consumes and displays this content, revealing new ideas, values and interests.

The form of Artefact H10515 evolves in random and unexpected ways; its appearance constantly changing in scale, colour and movement in response to the variety of content.

Created by artist Craig Walsh with programmer and 3-D animator Steven Thomasson and composer and sound designer Lawrence English, Artefact H10515 uses contemporary technologies to convey and explore ideas, trends and interests surrounding collecting and collections.

Walsh’s primary interest is in site-responsive projects where he encourages people to question their engagement with that site.

“Artefact H10515 is a living, unidentifiable object and sits in contrast to how objects in a museum are usually presented. It raises questions about what a museum experience can be; questions that the visitor can contemplate and answer for themselves,” explained Craig Walsh.

Artefact H10515 explores alternative ways of presenting and experiencing a Museum collection and incorporating the collecting interests of the wider community.

“Collections are the lifeblood of the museum and Artefact H10515 offers a new and experimental approach to presenting collections and encouraging visitor engagement,” said Powerhouse Museum Director, Dr Dawn Casey.

Artefact H10515 craves interaction. Visitors can engage with the work in the gallery or can influence its development and ‘life’ by uploading their content through the website. Artefact H10515 will open early September.

Primarily interested in hybrid, site-specific projects and the exploration of alternative contexts for contemporary art, Craig Walsh’s work often utilises projection in response to existing environments and contexts. His work spans a range of art forms and has been selected for major survey exhibitions, commissions and residencies both nationally and internationally, including: 01SJ Biennial, San Jose, California, USA; Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia; YOKOHAMA: International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan; Havana Biennial, Cuba; Experimenta: Under the Radar, United Kingdom, Media City Seoul Biennale, Korea; Heads Up, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; The National Sculpture Exhibition, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Anne Landa Award, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of SA, Adelaide. He has also completed major public projects for The Fuji Rock Festival, Japan; Womad Festival Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom; Tollwood Festival, Germany; Sydney Festival. In 2008 the artist showed Classification Pending on the River Thames, London as part of DRIFT 08; and was the recipient of the 2008 People’s Choice Award for his work in Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada. Walsh also participated in Koganecho Bazaar in Yokohama, Japan, a project designed to regenerate the former red-light district through art and community.

Steven Thomasson is a Brisbane-based visual designer who has worked in film production, visual effects, 3d animation, and graphic design for film and television. His interests for creating new outlets for design and animation has led him to collaborative projects for various public artworks and events.

Lawrence English is media artist, composer and critic. Working across a broad range of investigations, English’s work is eclectic and characterises a long-term exploration into various themes including audio/visual environments, found sound/vision, subtle transformation of public space and sonic art works that exist at the very edge of perception. For over a decade, English’s audio explorations have sprawled across a range of areas. Sonically, the work calls into question the established relationships between sound and structure – traversing experimental soundscapes and free improvisation to sheering rhythmic works and concréte-influenced compositions, his published works span a dynamic array of fields. In recent years English has performed and improvised with the likes of David Toop, Terry Riley, Keith Whitman, Ami Yoshida, Steinbruchel, Damo Suzuki, Marina Rosenfeld, DJ Olive, Philip Samartzis, Scanner, Tetuzi Akiyama, Janek Schaefer and KK Null.