Sunscript (Brisbane)

2006


Jennifer Turpin & Michaelie Crawford

Sunscript (Brisbane)

Written in light, the sun scribes solar poetry over the entrance pathway to the new Southbank TAFE. As it passes from east to west across the sky, legibility comes into and out of focus as meaning slips away into lengthening shadows.

A sea of floating letters is suspended in multiple layers in a fine web of cables 6-7 metres above the ground. On looking up, they appear random and make no sense, but on the ground, they cast shadows of words that come into legible alignment when the sun is overhead. Midday creates meaning out of the cacophony overhead and the ground plane is transformed into an expansive page to be read. Constantly changing, the shifting shadows on the ground reflect the time of the day, the change of seasons and the variability of the weather. As clouds pass over the sun for example, the text shadows are momentarily rubbed out to reappear again when the cloud passes. As the sun lowers, the cast letter shadows of each word gradually slip out of their alignment and morph into stretched, elongated forms, scrawling a textual abstraction over the ground and across vertical surfaces.


location
Southbank Education and Training Precinct, Brisbane
material
Solar panels, tension wire, various media, concept only
size
6 to 7m(H), 60m(L), concept only
client
Southbank TAFE
collaborators

Cox Rayner Architects, Tristram Carfrae, ARUP

media and downloads

Turpin+Crawford Sunscript 111121