StellrLumé Domes by Eleanor Gates-Stuart. Commission for the ACT Government, Centenary of Canberra
The StelrScope, ‘StellrLumé Domes’ are now in the permanent collection at the CSIRO Discovery Centre. The image shows an image of bread projected inside the dome.
A huge “thank you” to the Canberra Critics Circle for acknowledging the ‘StellrScope’Exhibition at Questacon. A wonderful tribute to the work produced as part of the Centenary of Canberra Science Art Commission and host partner with the CSIRO.
I share this award with all the terrific people who helped and collaborated in the making of StellrScope.
S C I E N C E + A R T ….. Yay!
Canberra Critics Circle:
The idea is that we, the critics, single out qualities we have noticed — things which have struck us as important. These could be expressed as abstracts, like impact, originality, creativity, craftsmanship and excellence.
The 22 year-old Canberra Critics’ Circle is the only such group of critics in Australia that runs across all the major art forms.
People tend to judge the benefits of Science Art collaborations by their tangible outputs, such as artworks, visualisations and other artefacts generally accessible to a wide audience. We argue that the process by which these artworks were created can be a significant, or even the principal benefit of these collaborations, even though it might be largely invisible to anyone other than the collaborators. We describe our experience of Art and Science as mutual catalysts for creativity and imagination within the context of a large multidisciplinary research organisation (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation—CSIRO) and a major national exhibition—The Centenary of Canberra Science Art Commission. We have formed a view that Science and Art often pursue orthogonal dimensions of creativity and innovation, and that with the right approach and attitude, collaborators can combine these dimensions to access new areas of imagination and ideas. We discuss some of the challenges we have experienced in pursuing this aim, but conclude that the rewards to Art and Science—and the benefits they deliver to society—are well worth it.
Eleanor Gates-Stuart, Matthew Morell, David Lovell, Chuong Nguyen, Matt Adcock, Jay Bradley
StellrScope Exhibition Guide – Information for touring the work.
StellrScope Touring Exhibition Booklet Guide
Provides further information on the StellrScope Exhibition and relating works as part of the CSIRO Residency and the Centenary of Canberra Science Art Commission.
For more information, contact email: stellrscope@stellrscope.com
Questacon – Connecting StellrScope in Gallery 5 with QLab
A show case of wheat plants from CSIRO in QLab – a chance to get up close with wheat. The microscope bench is a great place to see the wheatears and grains on screen.
Plant Industry promotes profitable and sustainable agrifood, fibre and horticultural industries, developing new plant products and improving how plants use natural resources through world-leading research.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.
StellrLumé Domesby Eleanor Gates-Stuart. The Centenary of Canberra – Science Art Commission
Video of the StellrLumé Domes at Questacon, StellrScope Exhibition.
The StellrLumé Domes installation, StellrScope, uses Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR) techniques to bring computer graphics into the human-scale physical environment. In order to facilitate interaction between the graphics and visitors, overhead depth cameras are used that sense red, green and blue as well as distance for every pixel. Custom software then extracts the human form, such as hands, over the top of the projection surface. Elements of the digital content are selected based on where ‘virtual shadows’ land. The audience must become active participants in order to experience the entire narrative.
The StellrLumé Domes are part of the ‘StellrScope’ Centenary of Canberra Science Art Commission and celebrate the story of wheat innovation over 100 years. The focus of these research was undertaken at CSIRO who were the Science Art Commission host, resident at the Future Food Flagship and Computational Informatics.
Credits
StellrLumé Team
Eleanor Gates-Stuart – Artist & Producer
Matt Adcock – Software Engineer
David Feng – Software Engineer
David Lovell – Transformational Bioinformatics Leader
Sherry Mayo – Research Scientist
Chuong Nguyen – Quantative Imaging
Pufferfish UK
StellrScope Music Composition by Marlene Radice
Excerpts, ‘A Nation is Built’ 1938 (Frank Hurley, Australia) NFSA title ID 7586. Courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia
William Farrer Archives, Courtesy of the National Library of Australia and the William Farrer Trust
Centenary of Canberra, Creative Director Robyn Archer AO and StellrScope Artist, Eleanor Gates-Stuart
Robyn Archer, Creative Director of the Centenary of Canberra, has first viewing of the StellrLume Domes (StellrScope Science Art Commission) with artist, Eleanor Gates-Stuart at Questacon.
The interactive domes respond to hands held over the dome to reveal a secondary visual narrative of the wheat story. The image on this StellrLume Dome shows 3D visualisation and Micro CT scanning of bread revealing the air hole structure in bread and documenatary footage of CSIRO wheat fields.
Other content is drawn from archives from the National Library of Australia, National Film & Sound Archive, the Farrer Trust, CSIRO and artworks.
Celebrating a Century of Wheat Innovation in Australia from the days of William Farrer to CSIRO Research today
5 August – 1 September, 2013
Open daily between 9.00 am and 5.00 pm
Venue: Gallery 5, Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre
King Edward Terrace Canberra, ACT 2604 Australia
Admission to StellrScope at Questacon is free (conditions apply, see www.questacon.edu.au for information
Hot Seeds will be running in conjuction with StellrScope in August
Hot Seeds @ CSIRO Discovery Centre
Posters: StellrScope & Hot Seeds
A Series of Artworks Celebrating the Centenary of Canberra, Science Art Commission Residency, StellrScopE, at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
6 August – 1 September, 2013
Open: Mon – Fri 9.00 am – 5.00 pm Weekends 11 am – 3 pm
‘Beautiful Mutant’ is the first of the virtual crop series being developed as an artwork for StellrScope. These 3D plants as based on ancestral genes and the experimental cross-breeding of wheat.
Image contains a StellrScope Watermark. High Resolution image is available – contact
Is it possible to bake a human size loaf of bread? Yes……… but would it bake evenly, would the texture be right, should it be baked in two halves, is there a large enough baking tin, an oven to place it in…….
A few of the questions in researching the super-sizing and concept of a large loaf of bread. “You want it sliced” – I think that tipped the scales – not to mentioned how we would keep it fresh !
So the concept arose from the benefits of eating bread and the value to our health and digestive system and exploring this research via the Future Grains Food Futures Flagship at CSIRO.
This idea focuses on ways to link the research to the StellrScope project and an opportunity to brand the health benefits of bread during the Month of Science (August) in the Centenary of Canberra Year. Perhaps the human shape could be embossed on the side of bread during baking?
‘Carbon Copy’, Image by Eleanor Gates-Stuart – Inspired by William Farrer Diaries
This is my first post of 2013 – the Centenary of Canberra Year. Having recently returned to view William Farrer Diaries at the National Library of Australia, I felt inspired to create this image dedicated to William Farrer.
Last year, I remember being in the manuscipts room at the NLA and feeling overwhelmed with all the artifacts at hand, yet very excitied and now back on track to see where this journey takes the research.
I found the carbon paper in his diary intriguing, a single piece of paper that holds so much information, a layering of sentence upon sentence .. words .. more words. It resonated with the way I produce much of my work, embedding layers and layers of information as a foundation and structure.
Unfortunately, this image does not give you the feeling of handling the book and the incredible sound of the crisp delicate paper.. something that has so much history and with context to Australia’s wheat legacy.
I hope to include more of William Farrer in my exhibition in August – the influence is already there.
Image celebrates the legacy of wheat experimentalist William Farrer and the innovative contribution of the Food Futures Flagship / Plant Industry of CSIRO.
This image, ‘Farrer Variety’shows grain grown to plant through the pages of William Farrer’s notes. The wheat is a 3D model and modern rendering of a new strain of wheat… linking a 100 years of excellence in cross-breeding and wheat quality.
References:
William Farrer’s Letters – National Library of Australia
Busy working on a new series of images. ‘Stems‘ is a detail section from one of the recent 3D images created around the William Farrer Field Books. Currently collecting more plant samples and preparing for high-res’ scans.
During the first half of the 20th Century, Australian coin designs reflected the nation’s burgeoning independence, which developed in parallel with successes in agriculture and primary industry. Australia’s current strong position in the global market was founded in the paddocks and plantations of generations past.
2012 Wheat Sheaf Dollar – Royal Australian Mint
Australia’s first $2 bank note featured William Farrer in celebration of his outstanding wheat experimentalism and contribution to Australia’s food future.
Image by Eleanor Gates-Stuart References: Agricultural Gazette of N. S. Wales, 1898; The Wheat Industry in Australia, Callagan & Millington, Angus and Roberston, 1956.
“It has been long suggested to me that I should write a paper giving the history and progress of the experimental work I have been engaged upon for the last ten years in improving wheats for Australia, and especially for the climate and conditions of our dry interior; but in looking into the subject, I find my notes have been kept so unsystematically and that so much has been forgotten which was of principal interest at some stage of the work, that it would be exceedingly difficult to write a paper on that subject which would be satisfactory to myself or interesting to others. I think it better, therefore, to make an effort to deal in this paper with the details of the work itself. Such a subject, if justice where done to it, would be likely to furnish suggestive information to others who might wish to take in hand work of a simimilar character, either with cereals or with some other domesticated plants”.
W. Farrer. ‘The Making and Improving of Wheats for Australian Conditions’,* March 1898. Agricultural Gazette of N. S. Wales.
*A paper read before the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, 10 January, 1898.
Read more about William Farrer: Link: William Farrer, Australian Dictionary of Biography
Eleanor Gates-Stuart has been awarded the Centenary of Canberra, Science Art Commission, with residency as, Science Art Fellow, at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) through their Transformational Biology Capability Platform (TBCP). She will be based at the CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics (CMIS) Research Division supported by the specialist expertise of Dr David Lovell, Bioinformatics and Analytics Leader, and Dr Matthew Morell, Theme Leader, CSIRO Food Futures Flagship.
StellrScope will be completed in 2013 and displayed at Questacon and the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra. The Centenary Science Art Commission is jointly funded by the ACT Government and the Australian Government and is one of many projects taking place to mark the Centenary of Canberra in 2013. http://www.canberra100.com./au/
StellrScope: Translating information complexity into a simplistic rendering of meaning