Meridians - engagement and collaboration in physical & virtual public space | Clare Leporati

Summary: Collaborations in Modern and Postmodern Visual Arts | Clare Leporati ‘Meridians Shanghai 2010: Art & Sound in Public Space Project’ is an international collaboration to create a public artwork for Australia’s contribution to Shanghai World Expo. The project provides a case study in which to compare audience engagement with contemporary public art. Audiences in Shanghai are able to experience the material artwork in-situ; this audience is then extended into virtual space, where people can interact with the work online beyond its physical time-restricted manifestation. This paper explores how online interactive technologies create a platform for the public to engage with public art beyond its physical materialisation and how this has the potential to construct a new form of social fabric. Social media and interactive online tools, created in Web 2.0, have been described as an ‘architecture of participation’. They have the potential to facilitate users collaboratively creating and participating in content production. The Meridians Project provides an insight into the conditions required to inspire virtual audiences’ interest in remixing, and re-conceptualising their encounters with the artwork into new forms of creative content. The incidence and impact of collaboration between the artwork’s creators and audiences across different virtual applications is mapped and assessed using three diverse models of engagement. Each model identifies the role and placement of the creator and audience in relation to the artwork and notes the hierarchy and/or openness towards collaboration. This case study provides an example for the potential for creative art practice in physical public spaces to be cognisant of the contribution interactive virtual audiences can make as active participants in collaboration. This new creative discourse could shift the parameters of what constitutes the artwork and potentially transform it beyond its physical specificity and singular authorship to generate new knowledge about artistic collaborative behaviour. Clare Leporati has over 15 years of professional experience working in the arts including in galleries and museums; writing and publishing; and training and research in Australia, the UK and Canada. Most recently she initiated and project managed the intercultural collaborative project Meridians Shanghai 2010: Art & Sound in Public Space' for the official Victorian Cultural Program within Australia's contribution to Shanghai World Expo. Clare holds a Bachelor or Arts majoring in art history and history, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management. She is currently undertaking her Masters in Art in Public Space focused on the research project 'Meridians Sited/Sighted/Cited' exploring engagement with a physical public artwork in virtual public spaces.