museum contemporary art, sydney, a design project

A New Image for the Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney - a place for art or as a piece of art?

Widianto Utomo Bachelor Interior Architecture Dissertation

University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia.

July-November 1999

A new image for the Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney A place of art or a place for art?

Bachelor Interior Architecture Dissertation Widianto Utomo, 2200631

The University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia July- October 1999

Preface Since its early establishment in 1991, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)- Sydney has tried to play its role as an art mediator in the contemporary art society, although its way to achieve that mission has facing enormous problem.

With a new image, I hope the museum is able to reinforce its function and mission as a contemporary art museum looking toward the future.

Come with an idea to explore contemporary art in Australia toward next millennium, particularly in relation with Sydney’s contemporary lifestyle, becomes the background of this dissertation topic.

Although contemporary lifestyle does not necessarily mean every one, live in that lifestyle.

With proliferation of information technology, especially virtual reality media, this topic will give me opportunity to look at how that media (I am referring to a new way of interaction with digital technology, for instance multimedia and web based technology) will lead and then shaping art museum or art gallery toward cyberspace highway. Although this might not become a final solution to the problem that we have now in our society or the museum one, but, at least it will give a picture of the future and could become a stimulus for the better solution in the near future.

I will start this dissertation with look at MCA-Sydney from its past perspective: its historical value and its early mission and function. Starting with its physical premises design point of view and how the overseas design at that time give significant impact to its architectural style. Furthermore, in what way its location gives first advantages to the museum as a contemporary art museum and how it will add the value to the museum and how it would be adaptable to the future thought of the contemporary art museum.

On the second topic, I will look at how digital technology will play momentous role in the MCA -Sydney now and beyond the future. In what way, they can fulfil its art mission, as a contemporary art museum, while at the same time virtual reality has become a new era of modern human lifestyle. From this starting point, how this new technology can embrace art museum as a necessity future lifestyle and how it can work together effectively?

Then, how Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney can become a picture of Sydney past and stands as a living contemporary art example for the next generation.

Finally, how it can play its role in the Sydney’s contemporary art community particularly and for all Australian in general and then to the World.

To conclude this dissertation, I will determine how the new image of the MCA- Sydney today and toward next century will take place. How its premises will not only stand as a subject of art, but also can become an object of contemporary art, while its new image can

encompass Sydney lifestyle and able to emerge as a piece of contemporary art locally and internationally.

At the end of this dissertation, hopefully I can give an idea of how contemporary art museum particularly and art museum or art gallery in general should be shaped toward new borderless world. I understand that this topic is still under developed, nevertheless, hopefully this effort will give a little picture of the future of the digital media in the relation with art and our society.

At this occasion, I want to say thank you to: -Yannis Paniaras, from Paniaras Design/ visual design- virtual reality: BioRococo- Lucid Actual, Finland, who is generously sharing his knowledge of virtual reality and enormously spend his time discussing the virtual reality online from the early stage of this project, and who has open my new vista of virtual reality world. Also, who gave preliminary thought and feed back of the contains and structure of the first draft of this dissertation.

-Trevor Batten, Amsterdam, for being very critical to my early text and giving me space to develop that text with his feed back and thought of the topic. And being kindly sent me his lecturer text that presented on April 9th 1998, in form of a video tape by Toine Otto, at the AKI School of Fine Art, Enschede, the Netherlands as part of an AKI/ University-Twente collaboration, as it would give me better idea what Virtual Reality from an individual perspective.

-Harry Stephens, my graduation project supervisor, 2nd year design studio lecturer, also the Head School

of Interior Architecture, for his time, support and his help during my study at this University.

-Madeline Lester, the director of Interni also the current National President of Design Institute of Australia, board member of International Federation of Interior Design (IFI) for her time, support, attention, help and understanding during mentoring my graduation design project.

-Janet Laurence, Sydney based artist, my graduation design project client for sharing her creativity, her time and allowing me to explore beyond the design limitation.

-Graham Jahn, the director of Jahn Architects Associates for his help and time giving preliminary outline of the MCA-Stage II design competition brief.

-Prof. Peter Kollar, Bill McMahon and Sue Serle, my design studio lecturers from 2nd year to 4th year, for preparing me to take off as a real designer with sharing their invaluable wisdom, knowledge and professionalism.

-James McGrath, my design-modelling lecturer, who very enthusiastic led the class, for his generous helped and introduced me to the new media of design presentation. Rick Bennett, lecturer from UNSWCollege of Fine Art, who allowing me to participate and gain new experience with taking a part in Omnium, virtual design studio 1999.

Also, I want to thank you to the Director, Development Directors and the Librarians of the Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney, for their assistance in this graduation project from the early stage.

And to the Directors of these following museums who are providing further information of their museums for this project: the Director of Vitra Design Museum, Germany; the Director of Marugame GenichiroInokura Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan; Jaana Hirvonen, Communication Manager, Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Finland and the Director of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain.

To this following companies and organization for providing organisational reference for both my initial project for graduation research and the topic of technology in this dissertation: The Netherlands Design Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Philips Design Centre, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Siemens Design & Messe GmbH, Munchen, Germany.

Finally, I want to dedicate this dissertation to my parents and my sister for their love, trust and enormous support while I am studying in Sydney, Australia. Without them, it is impossible for me to do this course and to gain this invaluable experience, opportunity and knowledge study and living in overseas. And, for my cousins for their love, trust, care and who supporting my idea in order to gain better education.

Sydney, Australia, 25 July 1999 Widianto Utomo.

Contents Preface

1. Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney.

1.1. Style and cultural identity.

1.2. Art museum and its role.

1.3.Mission, vision and its location context.

2.Art and Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney. Place making vision, real art and virtual art.

2.1. Place for art, piece of art- now and the future.

2.2. Future museum=virtual museum= contemporary art?

3. Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney, a place for art and a living example of contemporary art in Sydney. A new image, and its new role in the society toward next century.

Bibliography Appendix

Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney.

The Museum of Contemporary Art is Australia’s first major art museum dedicated to international contemporary visual arts. It is located in the former Maritime Service Board building, opposite Sydney’s world famous icon, the Sydney Opera House and adjacent to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The site is also in Circular Quay, is thought to be a very historic part of Sydney. The landing site of the First Fleet on the north of the building, while Sydney’s first hospital located on the south-west and Hospital Wharf was constructed in the front of the present building by 1820, then renamed to Queen’ Wharf with the accession of Queen Victoria.

The building was erected on the site of the Commissariat Store, built in 1812 for Governor Macquarie and demolished in the 1930s as part of Circular Quay’s redevelopment plan1.

1

From The Maritime Services Board Building: Conservation Study, Public Works Department of NSW 1985- section headed “Background” in typescript report.

-Sydney Cove, 1847, showing Commissariat Store on the right side of the present building site.

It was designed by William Withers in 1939; the building is designed in a style which today is referred to as Inter War Stripped Classical, according to MCA Stage II Briefing Document2, while Art Deco featured in its interior design.

The museum handed over from the Maritime Service Board to the University of Sydney to accommodate John Joseph Wardell Power (1881-1943) bequest to the University of Sydney in1961.

The museum opened in November 1991, and provides a permanent home for the J.W. Power collection of paintings, sculptures and the other works including his works.

2

Also according to Margaret Simpson on her book “Old Sydney Building: A Social History, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, NSW, 1955.

1.1.

Style and cultural identity.

Background:

The Maritime Services Board was a large and powerful organization when passenger and commercial shipping were at their peak in the 1930s.

It was responsible for the administration and control of all the ports and harbours in New South Wales.

In 1936, the Maritime Services Board of New South Wales constituted to coordinate port and navigation services in one authority.

In 1937, the Circular Quay Planning Committee, known as the Butters Committee, appointed to advice the government of Circular Quay planning, the design and the location of the new office for the Maritime Services Board3.

The board’s architect, William Henry Withers, designed the building although later on his successor David Baxter oversaw the construction and worked on the details.

Due to the Second World War, they suspended the design in July 1940 and recommenced again in late 1944.

“The Maritime Services Board building comprises a central six storeys section, with cross wings of five storeys each end, with a roof top terrace accessible from the top of the tower. The building built of steel construction encased in concrete, with concrete floors and roof. The walls are brick, clad in yellow Maroubra 3

Simpson, M., Old Sydney Buildings: a Social History, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, NSW, 1995, p.88-89.

sandstone, the base and entrance doorways polished Rob Roy red granite. The windows are bronze framed windows”4.

Style.

The style of the building is Inter War Stripped Classical; an architectural style that has a classical type building without has the all ornamentation. A style where is sympathetic to modern art movements, which from the turn of the century had stressed the virtues of simplicity and absence of decoration.5 The design character of the Maritime Services Board contrasts to other buildings when compared with those in the Rocks area, this because the design was a part of 1930s Circular Quay redevelopment vision, and it was built in association with Circular Quay railway station.

The new building style replaced the early Commissariat Store of Georgian character. The building has sense of civic design in 1930s, and it would project dignity from its style. It has certain grandeur, in addition, it related in its conception to a later phase of Sydney’ growth as a city.6 The style of the Maritime Services Board is a mix style between the conservative and modernity. “Its Art Deco, stepped profiles, that usually associated with a soaring verticality has counteracted and diminished the building energy and activity through its solid

4

Ibid, p. 89.

Ibid, p. 90.

6 Murphy, B., Museum of Contemporary Art, Vision and Context, MCA, Sydney, 1993, p.121.

5

horizontality”, a restatement chapter of modernism in its architectural vernacular7.

Art deco relief by Lyndon Dadswell, on the lintel over the Circular Quay entrance.

Furthermore, “with its projecting and interlocking wings, it has certain characteristics of Renaissance buildings”8. In contrast, the building expresses a moderate provincial civic architecture in its request to look modern, but in fact resisting either a fully modernistic sense of venture, or a regional character.

7 8

Ibid, p.121.

Ibid, p.121.

Museum of Contemporary Art view from Sydney Opera House courtyard.

132 George Street.

The MCA stage 1, 132 George Street erected in

1923-24 as an office building for the NSW Department of Labour and Industries.

The building is an example of Inter War Georgian Revival style according to Museum of Contemporary Art Stage II Briefing Document. “The parapet wall construction built of liver brick, laid English bond, with prominent cement rendered lintels and sills.

The north- west corner of the building is characterised by a truncated chamfer. The sand stone detailing on the exterior, comprising rock-faced ashlar, is confined to the ground floor elevations of the west and north facades”. 9 9

--, Museum of Contemporary Art Stage II Briefing Document, MCA, Sydney, p., 21.

Style Indicators.

Inter war style was influenced by the World War I period, starting in 1914 when Australian involved in a European war.

“In 1920s, Australia was marked by certain hedonism as people tried to conceal the immediate past and focus on the positive aspects of the presents”.

Then, when advanced technology was surrounding the world, the time barrier and distance was shrinking.

The main effect of these developments on many countries, including Australia, was growing knowledge and admiration for culture, attitudes and value of the United State of America, as it was the most skilled and powerful in the communication technology at that time.

Because of that perception, in 1920s, the average Australian lived in with American lifestyle trend.

“Australian architecture of the Inter War period was highly eclectic and moderately conservative.” 10

10

-Apperly, R., Irving, R., and Reynolds, P., A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture, Styles and Term from1788 to the Present, Angus and Robertson, Australia, 1995, p.149.

Inter War Stripped Classical 1915-1940.

“This style was often used in America and Britain for public and institutional buildings, which in earlier times would have classical details.”

The characteristic of this style is “symmetrical massing which creates a fundamentally classical composition, composition with minimal use of classical motifs and details. Somewhat has Spartan appearance, giving sense of affinity to the building with radical modern architecture, progressive yet conservative character.”

Its settings essentially urban and it is seen as a freestanding building or as a façade.

The exterior characteristic is symmetry, with simplified classical motifs, and usually concentrated at the key points for instance its entrance, “with Art Deco or late Art Nouveau decorative elements occasionally introduced. Plain walls surface usually in light colour and tone”. Opening in walls are usually in vertical arrangement with classical proportions.

The structure and construction of the building usually are fire resisting steel and or reinforced with concrete where required, but not obviously expressed11.

Museum of Contemporary Art, 11

Ibid, p.164-167.

140 George Street.

-Vestigial classical entablature or cornice.

-Occasional use of correct classical details.

-Division into vertical bays indicating classical origins.

-Elements of other styles.

-Simple surfaces.

-Division into vertical bays indicating classical origins.

-Spandrels between storeys subdued to emphasise verticality.

-Symmetrical façade.

-Occasional use of correct classical details.

-Large, simple areas of glass.

-Spandrels between storeys subdued to emphasise verticality.

-Division into vertical bays indicating classical origins.

-Simple surfaces.

-Spandrels between storeys subdued to emphasise verticality.

-Simple surfaces.

-Division into vertical bays indicating classical origins.

-Spandrels between storeys subdued to emphasise verticality.

-Simple surfaces.

-Division into vertical bays indicating classical origins

Inter War Georgian Revival 1915-1940 “By the early 1890s, some of the most progressive and influential architects in Britain and America had started to leave free ranging eclecticism and starting to embrace the seventeenth and eighteenth century Georgian style.

By World War I, the Revived Georgian style was well established, especially in Britain. It continued to be popular throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and often being used for houses, flats, institutional buildings and commercial modest size structures”.

The characteristic of this style is recreated of old Colonial Georgian style: “clarity, simplicity, reasonable proportions, restrained and simplified classicism. Predominantly domestic scale but occasionally used for urban commercial modest size buildings.

The setting of this style often freestanding in formal garden settings, where in urban location, buildings make typically Georgian good mannered contributions to the scale and details of streetscape”.

The exterior characteristic are symmetry, regular repetitive fenestration with plain wall surfaces of fine face brickwork or stucco enriched with classical elements for instance orders, porticoes, pediments, aedicules, etc.

The structure or construction of this style is “traditional bearing walls, timber floor and roof construction. Steel and reinforced concrete

construction with brick facings are usually used in commercial buildings”12.

Museum of Contemporary Art, 12

Ibid, p.150-153.

132 George Street.

-Cornice.

-Pilaster.

-String course.

-Panel double-hung window of vertical proportion -Symmetry.

-Classical order.

-Cornice.

-Pilaster.

-String course.

-Panel double-hung window of vertical proportion -Symmetry.

-Classical order.

-Plinth.

-Entrance given more high-style treatment.

The Maritime Services Board building design has a significant influential impact from overseas design at that time. The design influence was brought to the country by new skilled immigrants, or local scholars returned from overseas journey as modern industrial lifestyle has come to reach of ordinary families in many Westernised countries in 1920s.

Those conditions had brought the architecture style in Australia highly eclectic and moderately conservative.

Furthermore, the historical footprint of the site and its current fabric style will become an early layer of later establishment of contemporary art identity of the museum.

Cultural Identity.

“Museum of Contemporary Art –Sydney has obliged to reinforce and embrace provided existing building as a former office block expediency or reluctance, through its limitation.

Therefore, with its given conditions, MCA-Sydney has invited to address to questions of cultural reuse of forms and conversion of meaning: in fact a contrary of the tradition of purposive destruction, erasure, obsolescence and discard of previous cultural forms that have characterised of the earlier history of the site.

From this starting point, MCA-Sydney has been interested to take the advantages and rework the language of forms provided by modern industrial period, rather than set off on an entirely new path between dislocating inspirational monumental architecture and a designed place for an art showcase.

To reuse, restructuring and reinterpreting the existing cultural forms is an essential part of contemporary art language, providing a critique of modern culture to engage a momentum of endless obsolescence and to rebirth of forms and meanings”.

“Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney, which its early birth is not in the Circular Quay precinct, but within an institutional evolution”, the existing building and its new conversion to a contemporary art museum, has marked a multi layers toward history and reestablishment of new form and meanings within the existing design fabric.13 13

Murphy, B., op cit , p.122.

With its early establishment as a contemporary art museum, MCA-Sydney has mapped its site as a historical picture of old area of Sydney Cove and framed the Sydney’s journey as a city from the building style and its early function, toward its contemporary art cultural identity. A new art identity, where it has opportunity to build seamless interconnection and interaction, and then amalgamate between the past and the vibrant new modern city into one fluid continuum.

1.2

Art museum and its role.

A museum is a storehouse of things of the past, whereas contemporary art speaks of something that has just been created and is very much part of the essence of cultural life- it is wonderful descriptive taxonomy. Leon Paroissien, on the Australian 16 January 1990.

The term of art museum comes from the idea of a gallery.

The term gallery dates from the Renaissance period, and “refers to the large, side lit hall (galleria) housing privately collection of art works, private entertainment and display for the privileged. A gallery may be called an art museum wherever there are permanent collections involved. Furthermore, an art museum in western form is not only a matter merely of buildings, collections and facilities”. It also represents a site for construction and a challenging of history.

Since the nineteenth century, museums and galleries became a form of institution where representations of the past became rationalized. The emergence of museum and galleries were a part of the experience of modernity: developments in science and the technology, the industrial revolution and urbanisation, as well as the consequent changes in the experience of time and space14. The past becomes something that gradually isolated and obscured. It became “no longer important to and contingent upon people’s daily experiences”.15It completed, although those mapping of the past processes might still affect our daily lives.

“Art museum does not only contain representations, but also itself is a form of representation. It presents ensembles of objects in certain relationships, which themselves associate to material beyond the museum, beyond the domain of art, to a range of cultural activities, which in turn becomes the focus of a range of museums or sites of conservation of cultural forms”.

Art museum must be able to encourage the visitors to engage and participate with the objects, for instance through its display and in the production of their past.

“As art has its own special histories, languages and systems, art can only be fully defined as an art experience through reference to a wider network of meanings and activities that strike away from and beyond art. Art challenges human mind and spirit, at 14 15

Walsh, K., The Representation of the Past, Museum and Heritage in the Past Modern World, Routledge, London, 1992, p. 38.

Ibid. p. 2..

the same time connecting their personal experience to the wider world in which they belong.”16 Therefore, the place where the museum located should be considered as a space that is continually supported experiencing processes and continually changing through the time. Developing a sense of place is crucial as the world become more complex 17.

In addition, an art museum must be able to provide a concentrated site for the collection and review of cultural activities, and not as a storehouse for cultural objects solely, but also be able to contribute to the nurturing and care of cultural heritage. At the same time, they should encourage the community to care for and engage in the tasks of “conserving cultural memory and preserving selected material of the inheritors of the value to our society and culture”18.

In the past decade, museums and galleries have become active learning environments for people from its static artefacts storehouse. It established a new interpretation of education, reinterpretation, where on one hand it serves for education as a learning centre, and on another hand entering a “new and rapidly growing world, that leisure and tourism industry dedicated to pleasure and consumerism”19.

In their position within leisure industry, museums should be seen as places where people can gain educational and valuable experience rather than 16

Murphy, B., op cit, p. 250.

Walsh, K., op cit, p.150 18 Murphy, B., op cit, p.134 19 Hooper Greenhill, E., Museum and Their Visitors, Routledge, London, 1994, p.1-5 17

short-term excitement. The uniqueness of the museum collections might give them their certain position within the leisure industry20.

This new role of modern art museum will make art museums more open, more democratic, more professional and more responsive as people come to museum for many reasons, for instance: socialisation, a new found status to affirm their position in a new group of people, family habits and attitudes, part of lifestyle, interests related to the collections and exhibitions21.

A modern art museum must also concern itself with facilitating a perspective of space, that considering the economic, social, political and ritual links between people and places.

“As art museum developed their modern characteristic over a long period, therefore their growth tended to occur through a particular succession of expanding operations, that still effects ways of conceptualising the museum: from collection to display; from display to exhibition and loan exhibition; from exhibition to educational services”.22 As a medium for communication, which is defined through its presentation of the collections to the public in various ways, art museum must be able to

20

Ibid., p.1-5 Merrimen, The Role of the Past in Contemporary Britain, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1988, p.

219-304.

22 Murphy, B., op cit, p.131.

21

“replace the fragmented and erratic approached to their visitors of some museums in the past”23.

Museums and galleries are perhaps the only institutions in the society that have the potential to satisfy the needs of learners at all levels24. “ As learning involves acquiring and absorbing new information skills or experiences and making sense” of the relationship between the museums and the audiences25, the visitors must satisfy their lower need before they can satisfy their leaning processes as the higher-level of human need. Thus, true learning will occur when the old integrated with the new matter. 26 In the 21 century, museum must develop clear social function that information can be accessed in new ways and new levels of interconnectivity, where at the beginning museums and galleries were seen as expensive, time consuming and accumulate cultural capital, will be closer and can reach all level of society members, as museum is a public service27.

“The task for museums and galleries is to find new ways arousing and instilling passions and ways of exploring ideas which people will find illuminating, using the collections of the museum and the curiosity and experience of actual and potential visitors”28.

23

Hooper- Greenhill, E., Museum and Their Visitors, Routledge, London, 1994.Greenhill, p.1-5.

Ibid., p.142.

25 Bruner, J., The Process of Knowing, Vintage Book, New York, 1960, p.48.

26 Schouten, F., Target Groups and Display in Museums, Reinwardt Studies in Museology 1; Exhibition Design as an Educational Tool , p.3-11 27 Hooper-Greenhill, E., op cit, p. 6-7 28 Ibid, p.34.

24

1.3 MCA-Sydney: mission, vision, and its location context.

Location context.

The location of the Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney is located opposite the old area of Sydney Cove.

The location of the Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney does not only make the centre of the metropolitan as its backdrop, but also it gives free easy access to the most historical place of the foundation of a new nation.

Sydney Cove, comprising the area known as Circular Quay and the Rocks, is the site of the original European settlement in Australia.

The Rocks was the domain of the Eora people before European settlement in 1788 and its name was given by working parties of convicts who landed on the rocky peninsula forming the western side of Sydney Cove29.

The coastal region around Sydney Cove consists of the territorial, identity-conferring ranges, hunting lands, waters and sacred sites of a complex culture. The site where historical manifold separated; the site where British exiled, the starting point for new way of life; “a place of dispossession, of double- dealing death and desolation of human spirit”.

29

--, Museum of Contemporary Art Stage II Briefing Document, MCA, Sydney, p., 9-10.

Sydney Cove mapped the “historical narratives” of the site that incorporated two different world histories, British conquest of Aboriginal society and land and the Aboriginal themselves as the original owners, where the site contains the “precious fragments of their ancestors’ suppressed culture that still carried and nurtured with their own continuing history”30. To put together and then amalgamate those narratives is the only way to construct a common heritage of the site.

The site of the Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney did not only become a picture of the past and the birth of the nation, also a place where a growth of a city is being mapped. It has opportunity to incorporate its extraordinary natural geography, the past, present and the future within the museum itself, as museum is not only a place where we can find fragments of the past but also a place where mapping of human civilizations taking place.

Mission.

1.MCA affirms the power of art and creative activity, and will seek in all its activities, communicate this to wide and varied policies.

5.The MCA, in accordance with its commitment to embrace the most recent ideas, theories and works of art, will critically within the institutional and cultural formation of art.

30

Murphy, B., op cit., p.18-19.

6.The MCA will address a wide range of educational objectives in the field of contemporary art…the MCA will foster criticism and scholarship, while seeking to make contemporary art challenging to a broad spectrum of public audiences.31 Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney is “an institutional that committed to focus on contemporary art and culture, and seeks to address the ongoing presence of the past in the production of the future. Bringing new meaning between two dimensions, past and future, and redefining a space within contemporary art is pursued and contemporary art is made, to create a new cultural artefacts of any different kinds that challenge, articulate and resonate our sense of knowing and being”.

As contemporary art is “mediated by social and biographical, as well as imaginative experience, contemporary art museum has opportunity to make profound use of its expressive and conceptual resources: on question of memory, history and identity”.32 Therefore, Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney’s mission is collecting, exhibiting and educating/ communicating contemporary art.

The Museum of Contemporary Art- Sydney uses the concept of the museum while the framework of contemporary art projects the museum forward, “two concepts frames that have the dialectical movements within contemporary art and culture itself.

31 32

---, Collection/ Exhibition/ Education Policy, Museum of Contemporary Art Limited, Sydney, 1992, p.2-4.

Murphy, B., op cit., p.20.

Cultural processes that are drawing resources and nourishment from the past, but at the same time taking possession of the present and create active imagination of the future toward new experience”.

Vision.

The future vision of the museum is a museum that can flexible to ever changing social contexts for art. It needs to be “multi-sited, multi-focal, on dispersed locations for its cultural activities, rather than concentrated within a single precinct and communicating an overriding consolidation of value and power within one local and context”.

With taking the historical potency and advantages of the site, “Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney hopes to convert some patterns of displacement attached to the history of the site by reflecting on the past and dispersing some meanings, while reengaging and reaching for multiple meanings within an enlarged and enriched cultural language”.33

33

Ibid, p.124.

2. Art and the Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney. Place making vision, real art and virtual art.

Museum is a place of artificiality; place where full flux of activities is being separated from life process.

However, recognising the artificiality of the museum may encourage people awareness to recognise many different frame works of value surround and retain that as what might be called as art.

Museum is a place where the “activities surrounding history writing itself, might some histories are being broken up, reordered and reinvented”34. Therefore, being comprehended of the museum function, the visitors have been giving opportunity to explore their origins and evolution of their present civilization form.

Art museum is one kind of museum that dedicated to the disclosure and study of a full range of cultural, scientific and natural form. Collecting art objects is an example of conservation some human experience and memory in order to have a full cultural heritage mapping: transmission, interpretation and reconstitution, for the future generation.

The interaction between human and art is happened in many languages and bring many conceptions while they encounter with them. This interaction is often challenging, provocative, and puzzling, while it is also capable to produce human experience.

34

Ibid ,p.15.

“Whether we are aware or not, a process of intertwining and interpretation of art works, begin in our minds and our bodies, as we come to terms with sense of creating art works within their intelligibility and meaning”.

“When created artworks enter a world where objects and meaning already fulfilled, their emergent will be able to add new meaning to them, as artworks can become powerful critical and social impact through their ability to penetrate and unsettle a culture, to disturb and change system of meaning through a direct engagement of the attention of participation of audiences. It contains multi layers of experience that have broader affiliations and relationship with the whole range of objects, languages and symbolic systems through which we express, define and communicate human culture”.35 Museum has become a central to human culture, to human sense of themselves and to the future of their civilization. “As a cultural site, art museum offers untold possibilities for interaction, across art forms, between generations, and human races”.36

2.1 Place for art, piece of art- now and the future.

35 36

Ibid., p. 248-250.

Douglas, C., Galleries Come of Age, Looking Beyond 113years of Collective History, Smarts, no16, December 1998, p 14-15.

Art museum, which at the beginning defined as a storehouse for artefacts, especially art gallery called art museum because of its permanent collection, might be approach in new ways although it still has same context as a place of representation and interpretation of human civilization.

Art museum might not be viewed as a passive vehicle of stylistic succession, or of intellectual and aesthetic exchange, but also as “a presentation of the most sensate, akin signs and traces of much wider network of cultural processes, experience and meanings”. 37 As experience of art works involves human capabilities to analyse, to know, to perceive, to remember and to imagine. It also requires our sensibilities to put attention on their construction and details as well as their conceptual framework of relationship to other things.

Therefore, communication with art works can happen only where communication between the audiences and artwork happens directly.38 By recognising, the historical footprint of the building and its location in the historical vicinity of the birthplace of the nation, Museum of Contemporary Art- Sydney, has facilitated the mapping process of historical growth of Australian cultural activities.

This cultural activities process requires involvement many publics and sub-sections of community, with diverse aspirations, backgrounds, experiences and 37 38

Murphy B., op cit., p.15.

Ibid., p.16.

notions of value, toward future definition of contemporary art museum.

As a place for art, Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney has obligation to define its character as an institution dedicated for contemporary art and its relation to larger patterns of cultural history. As a contemporary art museum, it should contain museum definition as its foundation while the term contemporary become its framework. Then, it should capable to accommodate both concepts frames, a museum and contemporary term, at the same time within contemporary art and cultural context.

While it also becomes as a reflective cultural processes that draws resources and nourishment from the past, forming ideas of history, knowledge and value, and at the same time taking possession of the present and conceiving new worlds: drawing one memory to active imagination, reshape the concept, challenge the mind and then reactivate experience39.

The Museum become a cultural institutional where culture itself is sourced and shaped from community space to the museum space, “as art is related to the social context in which it is pursued, as well as seeking contrary grounds of statement, against the overwhelming flux of life itself”40.

“The Museum becomes a synthetic environment for art, as art has not longer naturally integrated with the whole spectrum of cultural activities as it is in premodern societies. This is because of our fragmented 39 40

Ibid, p.131-133.

Ibid, p.135.

and diversified relationship to history and object within modern society”. In order to understand art’s origins and become meaningful to particular society’s culture, the museum emerges as fabric of those representation and reinterpretation, and encourages the audiences to involve their history, identity and personal memory entering the framework of the art definition.

Museum of Contemporary Art is defined as a piece of art, as we look at the museum as an object, has had a character of contemporary art, which contemporary art means the art of the times, the art that produce in the present41. Although the building was built in the past, it has certain character which contemporary art definition can embrace its architecture character. This because the building has certain character that adaptable to the current and future condition, as it does not have a defined character of both classical art and modern art. “ It becomes an art that responding to the subconscious ritual and impulses of a social or cultural situations and emerges as an identified art form within historic civilizations”.42 While the building historical footprint can become a reference to its contemporary art definition, as contemporary art do not only means artwork from the present, but also means as an artwork that has contemporary art framework and values. A type of art that contain a form of representation, “ideas that are structured in the mind that also evolved through sensation and non narrative perception”, that has 41 42

Ibid, p.136.

Restany, P. and Zevi, B., Site, Architecture as Art, Academy Editions, London, 1980, p.14.

social context relating to particular times, history and cultural position43.

Museum of Contemporary Art- Sydney, either the existing one or together with the Stage II, new extension of MCA-Sydney should be able stand both as a place for art and also can become an object of contemporary art.

On one hand, it becomes a place where art objects are being displays and storage. A place where a human culture and civilization are being written and mapped.

It becomes a place for art, where the historical and cultural value of the building footprint and its vicinity has become the first foundation of it later establishment as an art envelope. As a place of art, it has become a cultural centre for marking the human civilization.

On another hand, it becomes an object of art. As its architecture can adaptable to any condition regardless the time. In the past, its architectural style was expected to be able to project the future, while in the present time; its style has become a historical trace of the growth of a harbour city for the future generation.

It becomes a contemporary art as it consists of many cultural layers from different periods. While at the same time, it facilitates those cultures on one single frame, as contemporary art might also define as layering human civilization journey toward modern human lifestyle.

43

Murphy, B., op cit,p.137.

Thus, the historical value of the site, its later function as a contemporary art museum, and pictures of the growth of the city are echoing and intertwining each other and then emerge as new modern human cultural centre, a place where art objects has been facilitated beyond culture. While at the same time it has become an art object of emergent.

2.2

Future museum= virtual museum= contemporary art?

Our architecture has no physical ground plan but a mental one.

There are no walls anymore.

Our rooms are pulsating balloons.

Our heartbeat becomes a room our face is the building’s façade, Coop Himmelblau. 44 That is what so schizophrenic about the conditions in which we live: telematic system for networking virtual realities worldwide make it possible for us to be simultaneously present here and elsewhere. During the course of the coming years we will have to accustom ourselves more and more to the idea of accepting ourselves and others as virtual forms of existence in virtual space, Roy Ascott.45 Computer technology has become one of the most important inventions in this century. It has become an essential part of modern human lifestyle.

Together with telecommunication technology, computer technology has brought human civilization to the new era toward borderless world. It does not only have change the way we lives and interact with our world but also it gives a new shape to the way we make relationship as a human being with others.

This technology has bring the world become smaller and closer especially with the Internet that emerged in the mid of 1990s. It gives new definition of interaction and communication. And gives a new term of interconnection in human society and culture.

44

Coop Himmelblau, Architecture ist jetzt. Projekte, (Un)bauten, Statements, Zeichnungen, Texte, 1968-1983, Stuttgart 1983, p.182, on Thomsen, C.W., Sensous Architecture, The Art of Erotic Building, From Media-Oriented Avant-Garde Design to Virtual Bodies in Virtual Architecture: Cybersex, Prestel. Munich, 1998, p.139.

45 Roy Ascott, Zuruck zur kunstlichen Natur, in: Kultur un Technik im21, Jahrhundert, Gert Kaiser et.al.(eds.) Frankfurt, 1993, p.351, on ibid, p.137.

Cyberspace becomes somehow part of new human culture, as it has ability to interact with human mind, (body) and become part of daily modern human lifestyle. “The boundaries of personal identity will be very fluid, arbitrary and subjective. Interconnection with others will rapidly form and dissolve”46.

It emerges as the fourth dimension of human civilization. It might as a new culture; new architectural spaces where it is not visible but it was present. A new space that is able to give a new contemporary experience.

A technology that is always evoked new representation of reality.

Although, might not everyone agree with those remark, it is true that cyberspace not always means positive to human being as the most intelligent social creature. With this technology, actually brings human being apart from others and it contradicts with their definition as a social creature.

With e-mail, we can write and read virtual letter and everyone will have uniform hand writing, computer writing style. We will less visit our friends as we can do our regular socialisation with our computer/TV set through real time camera.

It makes new definition of individualism in modern human civilization.

We can do whatever we want to do with help of technology.

46

Hans Moravec., The Senses Have No Future, on Beckmann, J. (ed.), The New Virtual Dimension, Architecture, Representation and Crash Culture, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1998,p.88.

Even we can do our daily grocery shopping from home with virtual money (credit card basically is a good example of an early approach of future virtual money/cash/bank).

Conventional post marked has been changed with infrared barcode postmark that done digitally as another good example. This new development obviously will gradually reduce then replace conventional post office and post officer. We can access our e-mail from home or anywhere from a server, ISP (internet service provider), that becomes a virtual post office for our daily e-mail (electronic mail).

We also do not need go to cinema anymore as we can watch cinema from our computer at home or from anywhere with portable computer or digital new definition mobile telecommunication unit with cinema quality.

Smart interior both static or dynamic for another example, we can have a device that create an interior atmosphere (virtual interior) within a second, so we can have different interior style according our mood in every occasion without necessarily require an interior designer to do so. Those inventions will change the way we make our life and form our community.

We do not need public school to gain formal education anymore as we can have virtual university with cheaper and better quality education, and might friendly teachers. Might we want also to fix the

problem that we currently have in our current society: pollution, traffic jam, crime, unemployment, homeless, etc. with digital technology. There will be police cameras anywhere on every corner of the city area to protect us from the street’s troublemakers. It makes the street saver and makes scrolling city enjoyable. In fact, we do not longer have privacy, as now every movement of our life freely exposed to the public observation.

Those facilities exist as we deserve better life and want something that we can express ourself as the most intelligent creatures.

Digital technology has made Internet as the most powerful media to send information/data through the space, as cyberspace do not limited with wire interconnection anymore.

This is one example of human behaviour to express their intelligences and remarking human civilization on the earth.

Ancient people mapped the way they lived and what they achieved with pictogram on the cave, and now modern people want to do the same thing in another way, in digital technology. It will make life become tougher and highly competitive as only people with digital technology skill and knowledge only will survive in this digital world; it is same competition pattern with what happen in the past. We always want better than others and get a better chance when we could.

Does this mean, we are no longer in a real world, real life and real community, as all of them has been replace with digital community?

We create a technology that gradually not only become a tool for us but also become an essential part of our life.

It means, although it has some negative affects to our life and community, but it also has some good aspect that we should look at.

It has created to make our life better and easier in some extent.

Cyberspace is considered as the solution to all problems in the real world. Interconnection of the cyberspace has brought the urban reality of cities: the decay of public areas, increasing sub-urbanization, and the setting up of the dual city to another dimension with promise. A city where no longer has geographical condensation of capital, power, culture and knowledge, Florian Roetzer.47 The natural world was portrayed as vast selfcontained mathematical machine, consisting of motions of matter in space and time, and man in purposes, feelings and secondary qualities was shoved apart as an unimportant spectator and semi real effect of the great mathematical drama outside, Edwin Arthur Burtt.48 Cyberspace has been seen as a bio-electronic environment, a universal environment, where there 47

Florian Roetzer, Outer Space or Virtual Space? Utopias of the Digital Age, on ibid p.128.

Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, Atlantic Highlands, N. J. , Humanities Press, 1980, p.104, on ibid, p. 51.

48

is new living environment that its success or failure will depend upon common good, which public life, and culture differences will be used in the creation

of an environment where everybody can coexist. Florian Roetzer.49 By changing space, by leaving the space of one’s usual sensibilities, one enters into communication with a space that is psychically innovating. For we do not change place, we change our nature, Gaston Bachelad 50.

Virtual reality as a new media of cyberspace has brought the role of cyberspace in the human civilization become more apparent. It has facilitated the construction of the fourth dimension become reality. “A spatiality that no longer be expressed in integer numbers but instead in fractional”. 51It tends to extend the real space toward virtual space. It is a

dynamic space where its space- time is able to give experience to individual.

It is a new world dimension where interconnecting the users in immediate and intimate with no interval.

Its environment destabilizes traditional concepts of space and cultural interiority. It diminished the concept of a geographical area with single cultural identity and history within its physical borders, Townsend S.52.

49

Roetzer, F., ibid, p.132.

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Boston, M.A., Beacon Press, 1966, p.206, on ibid p.146.

51 Andreas Ruby, an interview with Paul Virilio, Paris 15 October 1993, Architecture in the Age of Its Virtual Disappearance, on ibid, p. 182.

50

VR (virtual reality) becomes a part of modern human lifestyle that gradually shift their lifestyle in the real world. It has changed the way we do our daily activities, our businesses, our works, our interactions, relationships, and communications with others as a human being and they way we are thinking. It does not only make a new artificial layer in human civilization but it has changed, emerged and give new shape that make it seems as a natural interaction. It might become something that we will not realise its artificiality as gradually we are going to adopt and accept its presence in our culture and in our mind.

It is a new spatiality, that has a new definition of architecture, a space where it existence no longer important and necessary. It has a new representation and definition of culture in new cyber society. No single cultural identity will exist, but it will consist of the trace of old culture that coexist and emerge as a new cultural identity, a cultural identity that emerges from our awareness as a social creatures. As we always deserve a fulfilment for our interest in our environment bubble. Culture that no longer has defined as an identity at the beginning, but at the end will gradually form a new culture, as we adopt cyberspace as part of our life and our culture.

Future museum= virtual museum= contemporary art?

52

Townsend, S., Unfolding the Surface of Information, Design Issues, Volume 14, No3,, MIT Press, Cambridge, Autumn 1998, p.818.

Virtual reality technology that its technology has tremendously growth in the past years has opened a new vista on the way we seeing our world.

It makes our daily life faster and more dynamic. It might make our life easier and convenient. It opens all impossibilities in the past to the new era of better easy solution, in medicine field for instance or in reconstruction of ancient history that might be very difficult or very expensive if we do in conventional way.

However, at the current time this technology is only as a compliment and accelerator to our conventional modern lifestyle. It might take sometimes until this technology will become a natural interaction between human and artificial world that never tangible and visible.

A conventional art museum, where it designed as a place where we can gain new real experience and education through its collection might be in the current development of digital technology will be no longer effective and visible in term of commercial value and for future development.

As we seen recently, few new born virtual museums both in World Wide Web media and in another form has become a good example how museum can be pushed further in digital technology environment53.

Especially for contemporary art, as contemporary art will do not have a define definition of fine art. It is

53

Notes, for example: www..zkm.de

type of art that have more flexibility and opportunity to be explored and developed.

Virtual reality is realm that has fragment of past, the birth of technology: industrial revolution, while at the same time it has the essence of the present technology: digital technology. It is a new form of digital technology that it opportunity just revealed and yet developed.

Can VR be categories as contemporary?

Might be the answer is yes, as contemporary means product of present time. Although it might has the fragment from the past, but it has framed in the present time and still has the present value.

Virtual reality technology does not only have open the new vista of digital technology but also open new opportunity that might have less feasibility in the past. It might give more opportunity and democracy to broader society for accessibility that in the past might have limitation.

This can be seen from present digital network media, the Internet. The users have opportunity to gain access to any type of information from different domains in relative short time. It might have less restriction; less regulation but has more freedom to gain any information than in the real world.

It has greater interconnection than before, as time and distance barrier has become less obstruction for communication between one and another place in the world. It makes personal and cultural identities

differences almost disappear. Every one becomes equal disregard their age, sex, race, nationality and location origin.

In term of museum, Internet might give better accessibility for the people who live in far distance from the museum. It gives more opportunity for people being able to access a museum that might be located in another country without necessary do travelling.

Internet might stand as an extension of museum publication; it is not necessarily it contains the entire collection of the museum, although it might happen if the museum is a virtual museum. A museum that its domain is in cyberspace, a museum that it physical premises never present.

This media, the Internet, is only one example how art museum can use and explore Internet media possibilities to expand their wing and then communicate and interact with their visitors.

However, with its limitation might Internet as 2D world will not able to give the real experience to their visitors. As one task of the museum is delivering the real experience and representation from its collections to the audiences, beside its functions as a cultural centre.

It might give a real experience, as this media might give same experience with what we gain while watching movie or television. It requires interaction of our body sensory and mind in order to perceive that information. The limitation of gaining this information in order to get real experience from this

media is not many audiences can be reach, especially person with have disabilities.

Virtual reality world might become a better solution as a digital representative of the museum. It has the ability to have 3D space inside 2D environment; this might be in Internet environment but no longer limited on a flat screen only. This might be able to visualise on type of monitor that has ability to deliver 3D image onto its surface (this might or might not require a special spectacles to watch that 3D space)54.

Another way of using Virtual Reality is delivering real experience function more apparent is by using real space with VR environment55. It is designed space where people can have digital experience within that space. It might require certain equipment in order to access that experience in very natural ways of interaction.

As an example of this application is: Holowall, it is an interactive digital surface /wall that allows the audiences to interact with digital information displayed on the wall surface without using any special pointing devices. It is capable to demonstrate several interactive environments, “including a world of autonomous digital insects that respond to body movements and an interactive sound environment that reactively creates music sequences based on the user’s action”.56

54

For instance: HDTV 3D television, 3D LCD- www.Philips.com Notes, for example: www.csl.sony.co.jp, characters.www.media.mit.edu, laplace.photo.t-kougei.ac.jp, www.nearlife.com, www.ncrhitc.com, www.biorococo.com- virtual campus example, artnetweb.com/port.

56 Rekimoto, J., Holowall: Interactive Digital Surfaces, Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Inc., on Siggraph1998, Conference Abstracts and Applications, Computer Graphics Annual Conference Series 1998, ACM Siggraph, NY. 1998, p.108.

55

Another example is Virtual Fish Tank from Nearlife, Inc., is a simulated aquatic environment where the visitor can have direct interaction with the digital object and gain experience directly from that interaction57.

In term of museum, in this case contemporary art museum we might have series of digital display panel that deliver artwork, might be digital interactive panels that can have direct interaction with the visitors. It might be a digital panel, which can be accustomed according to the visitors need. Might be just a digital panel that can interact with visitor’s eyes movement or according to the retina refraction, and then able to change its next display after few minutes automatically.

It might be a real space that facilitated the interaction of that digital media; it means a space within a space.

This means, we still require a physical premise to accommodate that digital equipment. However, this digital equipment has expanded and pushed further in the early definition of art museum.

The physical premise no longer as static and concentrated premise, but it becomes a device that facilitates real interaction with their visitors, as a natural experience might only be gained from interaction of our body, and our mind with the objects.

This might become a redefinition of museum in the past, where the past is preserved for the future while it 57

Koumbis, S. Virtual Fish Tank, on ibid.

also encourages the visitors to build their own representation. It is not longer only as an art storehouse, it might become a digital representation of the past but still it is a cultural centre. A centre where the mapping processes of the human civilization is taking place.

Although still as a cultural centre, this definition has pushed further not only as a centre for local culture only, but it might as a global culture as the cultural identity will gradually disappear as a result of intertwining processes between one with others.

This might the museum that conducts an exhibition from another country contemporary museum collection. It might happen with just sending information and data online through cyberspace and then the visitors of those two museums or more, can view the exhibited objects or even interact with them in real time in real environment.

As the cyberspace do not recognise permanent space, this gives opportunity to the museum to have more than one museum in cyberspace network. It means they can disperse the data and information to many locations, in term of real space, or they can disperse that data directly to their subscribers, without necessarily to have big amount of asset to realise the project. This system makes the museum able to reach their visitors more than before. Especially the main aim of a museum as a public service is delivering educational service to every one disregards their background.

This VR system might become an extension to the museum, but it might become a new form to define a museum, it might a hologram box that can easily be purchased like we buy television, that has the ability becoming receiver to broadcast data/information like radio system. It means we can access to a museum or other kind of information in matter of second from anywhere in the world. It might the hologram box that we have at home or from a communal place like cyber-café in current trend. Then we just pay the museum access fee with virtual money, money that accommodate in card form that do not only become our money storage but also as our passport (ID card), phone card and home access key.

How is about the real experience?

Real experience, do not necessarily have particular space set up in order to gain that experience.

However, it might the location should be carefully considered as the location will contribute to the space in order to gain real experience. But, this is not necessarily real premises to accommodate that real experience, that real experience can be gain from anyplace as it will happen when the interaction between our eyes, mind and the object (in this case virtual object) taking place.

Finally, future museum=virtual museum= contemporary art, is a museum that extended digital technology definition, especially virtual reality media in order to build a new form of museum that facilitating both conventional art and digital technology in a digital technology environment.

Virtual reality itself is a form of contemporary object.

It does not become an instant contemporary art product, because of its location in an art museum but because virtual reality itself has contemporary definition, it had a past process that then finally framed in the present time in new single definition.

Museum of the future, is a museum where the digital technology becomes a complement to the initial definition of museum, it has expanded the museum function as mediator between past and present to their visitors. It builds a new definition of real experience together with new definition of culture. It also might be in a museum form that its premises do not necessarily exist, but the value and the role of being a museum still exist, a compilation of the human civilization journey. This means the future contemporary art museum in term of virtual reality will mean: museum, object, architecture, the technology, and contemporary art object.

3. Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney, a place for art and a living example of contemporary art in Sydney. A new image and its new role in the society toward next century.

Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney where the location and its architecture has become a living object of Sydney past should have a new definition of

contemporary art statement in term of current mission and beyond the future vision.

It is a cultural centre for Sydney society particularly and for all Australian in general as it is a place where they can trace the emergent of their nation.

As a place for exhibition of contemporary art, the museum envelope should be able to stand as a piece of contemporary art. It is not a piece of contemporary art because it accommodates contemporary art object inside, but because it has the trace of the past that brought into the present time with new definition and dimension. It emerges as a living contemporary art because of its existence in the present time and can adaptable in the future term.

In term of digital technology, especially virtual reality technology media, the museum can use the advantages of this media and the advanced technology that will become more visible in the future to reinforce their vision. The future vision of the museum expansion is a museum that its location was dispersed in order to reach more audiences disregard time, distance and social boundaries.

The benefit with using digital technology as a part of their collection and as a new form of contemporary art museum for instance they can reduce the collection space storage with CDs collection or computer network facilities. They can also have more often collaborations or collections exchange with another contemporary art museums in another countries especially for their permanent collections.

This method will not only give more opportunity to the wider audiences to see another countries collection in easy ways but also it will cut the museum operating cost. It will not only eliminate all impossibilities exchange procedures because of the country’s custom policies or another invisible void.

The virtual reality itself can become a part of the collection, as it does not only as a media for communication but this is a new digital media that has contemporary art definition. It is present in the present time but it has the trace of the past and adaptable to the future term.

While the museum has already become one of Sydney cultural centre, with adoption of the new technology as apart of redefinition of contemporary art museum, the museum will bring together the past, present and future to the new Sydney lifestyle. A lifestyle that has dynamically grows as fast as the proliferation of digital technology, a new society that its cultural identity will be gradually replaced by universal cultural identity. It is a city where its nation no longer become its boundaries. It is a city that becomes a part of the world community disregards their time and distance differences and political backgrounds.

Finally new image of Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney is a image where the museum itself stands as a contemporary art while it accommodates contemporary art objects both in the conventional form or in digital technology form.

It has obligations to deliver its mission as a learning and educational leisure place while at the same time

stands as a cultural centre where the culture definition itself has emerge to the new dimension of human civilisation universal cultural identity.

Also it will be redefining the contemporary art definition, it does not longer mean an object in the present time, but an object that created in the present time that has trace from the past that might also contain reality and artificiality that created by digital technology. This is new definition of modern human civilization picture, where digital technology has no longer become a tool but as an essential part of their civilization.

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Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, ACT, Australia, No17, March 1999, p.31-32.

Further reading, -Creating Value by Design, Philips Electronics n.v, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 1998.

-Siggraph 1998 Conference Abstracts and Applications, Computer Graphics Annual Conference Series, ACM Siggraph, NY.,1998.

-Future Design, Axis no 70, Japan, NovemberDecember, p.12- 55.

-Philips Design 97, Philips Electronics n.v, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 1997.

-Sony Design, Sony Corporation Creative Center, Tokyo, Japan, 1997.

-Siemens Design & Messe GmbH., Munchen, Germany, 1998.

-Netherlands Design Institute, 1995-1995 Activity, October 1997 -Vision of the Future, Philips Electronics n.v, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 1998, second edition.

Appendix

artnetweb.com/port/ dspace.dial.pipex.com/ikon mistral.culture.fr/louvre thehamptons.com/museum web.infoweb.ne.jp/mimoca/co nsept_e.html. www.aec.at www.amico.net www.artgallery.nsw.gov.a u www.artseensoho.com/mu seumlinks.html www.art-tech.org www.artwalker.com www.biorococo.com www.camnc.org www.chi-athenaeum.org www.clpgh.org/warhol www.cmp.ucr.edu/netscap e.html/ www.cnac-gp.fr www.culture.com.au www.design-museum.de www.design-inst.nl www.fng.fi www.fondation.cartier.fr www.guggenheim.org www.hht.nsw.gov.au www.hultongetty.com www.intelligent-agent.com www.io.tudelft.nl/uidesign www.iua.upf.es www.jkl.fi/aalto www.kyohaku.go.jp www.madm.org www.massmoca.org www.mca.com.au www.mcachicago.org www.mit.edu www.moca-la.org www.moma.org

www.mov.vic.gov.au www.mus-kim.dk www.nasatechnology.com/id www.national_gallery.org .uk www.newmuseum.org www.nga.gov www.nga.gov.au www.nmaa.si.edu www.phm.gov.au www.riihimaki.fi/lasimus www.salarts.org.au/artsup. www.sfmoma.org www.si.edu www.siggraph.org

www.sjmercury.com www.sonet.or.jp/FuseAcademia www.sohogalleries.net www.stedelijk.nl www.stillgallery.com.au www.tate.org.uk www.totemdesign.com www.users.interport.net/~ xaf/theatre.html. www.vam.ac.uk www.via.or.jp/~imnet/mo t/index-e.html www.zkm.de www2.arnes.si/guest/ljintima3 /ibey.html.

Connect> Bachelor Interior Architecture Graduation Project- UNSW. Widianto Utomo<2200631> October 1999.

Inside> >The MCA stage II design project brief, >The project >Design brief >Design concept >Design breakthrough >Finishes schedule/specification >Dissertation brief >Appendix <subject description <design brief with the client and MCA stage II brief with Graham Jahn <Museum of Contemporary Art Stage II Development Briefing Document <MCA Cinematheque Data Sheet- Jahn Associates Architects

The MCA stage II design project brief Australia with its world class art potential, has obliged their artists, to develop their clear positions on question of regionalism, indigenous culture, ethnic diversity and cross-cultural developments, on new museums and exhibition practices, as on the utilisation of new technologies, in amalgamation with ever more multiple artistic judgements entailed in confronting a dynamically changing world.

The position of MCA on the Circular Quay site will enable the new extension of the museum to encompass Australian and international issues that are being addressed by artists, film-makers, designers and those concerned with theory and criticism in the visual arts. It will give new experience to the artists through new diverse media to express their works. It also will provide an information centre both for the general public and for scholarly research.

The new museum must be a lively meeting place for artists, critics and interpreters working across many media. It should be an open and inviting place, especially for those wishing to develop their comprehension of the contemporary world through being challenged constantly by Australia’s lively contemporary cultural life.

(Extract from the director of the Museum, Leon Paroissien foreword, MCA Stage II Developing Briefing Document)

The MCA stage II will provide additional exhibition and education spaces, support gallery space, support facilities, major function areas for patrons, members and visitors, and additional space for retail rental.

The emphasis of this stage will be on exhibiting the moving-image in galleries, multimedia spaces and a cinematheque, distinguished by its technical sophistication standard of presentation and programming philosophy58.

The cinematheque will become a central point of the new museum, it will also provide not only a sophisticated and accessible gateway for worldprogramming, but will play a prominent role within the network of existing moving-image organization across Australia by offering a high profile shopfront.

The new café, or as it is called Hot Spot Café, will become another attraction of the museum particularly, and to the vicinity generally (Circular Quay, Sydney Opera House, and The Rocks).

The aim to create hot spot for the visual arts culture supports the performing arts culture established across the water at the Sydney Opera House.

It also will inject fresh cultural and commercial life into the Rocks vicinity.

The concept of a hot spot is a large meeting place, watering hole, open room or veranda, which enables and encourages people to congregate naturally. It is a public space, which might offer a seamless interaction with the arts, while taking in the splendour of the 58

MCA stage II Design Development Brief, p.3

harbour. This might be the place for resting for guided tours, coffee break before or after the opera, and where audience and film- makers met after opening night at a film screening59.

The ambience of the place needs to be ambiguous and open to different moods. This hot spot cafe should charge at the foyers and entry areas for visitors and day-trippers.

Architects are encouraged to consider their approach to the telescoping contexts of the regional plateau or flooded valley, the urban hinge of the CBD and lowscale harbour, the heritage issues of a nineteenth century grain, and the absolute importance of the Quay as a public promenade, especially for Sydney’s wider consciousness. Architects are invited to consider a new concept of new building ‘between the earth and the sky’60.

Finally, the hot spot café could give an additional address to the entire new museum, beside the cinematheque.

(Extract from the MCA stage II design development brief)

59 60

ibid., p.3,35 ibid., p.35

project:

the Hot Spot Café (MCA Café-Sydney) and the ground floor of MCA stage II (a gift shop-The Shop and the Swatch shop).

Location: The ground floor of Museum of Contemporary Art Stage II, 132 George Street, Sydney, NSW. 2000.

Client: Janet Laurence, Mentor: Madeline Lester, Supervisor: Harry Stephens, MCA Brief: Graham Jahn, Lecturer: Sue Serle.

the design brief The hot spot café is a space, which can become a new spot to the museum particularly and the vicinity generally. This new space should be a compliment to and can go along with the existing place identity and to the Sydney’s world famous destination. It should become a space, not only a space within an art vehicle, however it should be able to stand as an art statement inside its envelope.

As to its function as a café, it should become a hot spot café, a café with an extraordinary character, where its main function is creating a place for a large meeting venue, watering hole, open space, and have the ability to encourage people to congregate naturally.

The café will able to become a spot for 24 hours continuously, it means the ambience of the place needs to be ambiguous and open to different moods.

And, with its first advantages of the site, the cafe should have good echoes to the regional flooded valley, the urban hinge of the CBD, the low scale harbour, and the heritage issues of the nineteenth century fragment, and the Sydney Opera House.

The interior design of the café should have echoes to the new museum central point feature, the cinematheques with its technological sophisticated and to the harbour. It should become a fresh creative and bold design with considering the concept between earth and sky, and is expected become a living art inside the new museum.

The café interior also should be able to create a dialogue between the water and the museum, with seamless transition between.

The cafe should be able to create a feeling of watering space. While the design should be able to challenge the visitors to interact with each pieces of contemporary art that are created from the each objects inside of the interior fabric (for instance types of food, style of servery, cutlery, furniture elements, decorative elements, and other interior elements), also the café clientele will have contemporary echoes from the museum event.

The final design is expected to have reflection of its nature envelope; sky, water and land in very creative ways of design and has an opportunity to challenge the design as a piece of contemporary art work and representative of sophisticated new advanced technology as an interior design element. At the same time, the design should be able to speak out as a hot spot from its minimalist design.

The design will be able to attract people to come and congregate because of its total design uniqueness and boldness as a contemporary artwork, beside its inviting and comfortable atmosphere.

The café design is expected become a hot spot creation without copying the new museum extension envelope, however it could become a part of whole of the museum fabric and stand as an independent art statement with its distinct character.

Finally the hot spot café should be able to stand as a piece of art while its design and its function and style can last as long as the museum life times.

Concept theme: Floating Universe design

The design concept: bring and blend people together and assemble them with the place as a vehicle and as interior elements. Amalgamate their collaboration with the nature, and the contemporary arts themselves without direct interaction.

It will facilitate the existence of the sensation and passion of the nature surrounding (water-earth-sky) unification, through its interior atmosphere.

A space, which has the ability to transform people inside, becomes a piece of moving art within a living art.

A place that has the power to transform an ordinary object becomes a piece of creative and dynamic contemporary art.

A place where its uniqueness and boldness design will radiate to the universe continuously around the clock.

designBreakthrough The stage 2 geometry: site observation The diagram below is a comparison study of the site between The Rocks area, the harbour and the Sydney Opera House in relation with the new MCA (the stage 1 and stage 2).

>order> complexity(edge of chaos) > chaos>> dynamical system = the Rocks> MCA > Sydney Opera House

>solid> phase transition > fluid>> matter =old building, natural, solid, heavy, rigid, dense> technology+ man made, advanced technology involvement, translucent/transparent, light> man made

>architectonic repetition, static, uniform > bold, interactive, dynamic > fluid, static, non organic> fluid (fusion between non organic and organic)> organic solid(non organic) > cell membrane > liquid(organic)

>past> past, present and future become a seamless interaction > present

<SPOT (hot spot) = sun > radiate to the universe -bold> dull

-new> old/ traditional, conservative

>sky-the reflector/mirror > fire/sun as the centre > wind- distributor > wood- nature- void > landsacrifice> water- lifter/floating.

>Water-winter> fire summer> wood-void > landearth > wind autumn

<In relation with the activities (velocities) -traffic on the harbour, traffic on the road -light wave of the sea, the sky, the changing climate over the area -traffic on the museum The geometry of the stage 2 based on the idea, how I see the relationship between the building and the city, the harbour, the wave, the sky, the past, the present and the future.

And, how the new MCA will become a unique transition between the past, and present and able to stand as a new art object. It might contain the trace from past that belong to the present time, and at the same time it has future reflection.

The building should be located where it can embrace the past, the present and future and able to radiate its unique design to its vicinity.

The geometry/shape itself was generated from the existing building shape than its basic shape was collaborated with the condition and situation surrounding. For instance, how the building in relation with the traffic (both sea and road), and the

movement (action and reaction) from the sky, sea and how wind generated in the area and how the city skyscrapers (figure: frequency diagram) will become an additional consideration to the final shape of the building.

the

MCA-Café, Sydney

designObjective From my design concept theme: Floating Universe, I see how the café will located between the past, the present or the future, but it does not belong to one of them.

It exists, and it is able to embrace the all elements differences at the same time.

The basic shape of the café envelope was inspired from the bubble, ribbon and its own logo.

I see bubble is a unique shape; the bubble is formed because there is fraction between the outer factor and inner factor of liquid material. There is action and reaction. Its shape can be categories to sphere or to box, but not belong to both of those. It stays between but has the both basic elements.

Bubble when it becomes bubble will be floating to its origin, as it will be no longer liquid but it will stay between liquid and the air.

Within the bubble itself, there are still some elements of its origin liquid. It still has the essence of the liquid but now it has a new definition and dimension.

While the ribbon, I see ribbon has a certain flexibility and function. It might become very strong and useful material and at the same time, it contains aesthetic aspects.

It might represent how we fold and unfold the past at the same time we want to embrace the present and future on the same timeframe.

It also will represent how the breeze in the area forms the steady wave of the harbour. It might happen for the whole time, from the past and the present even the future; the different is how and when that moment is captured as the city will never same again, and the nature surrounding also has change continuously, but there is one thing that never change, the interaction between the sky, the land and the water.

The idea that generated from the ribbon shape will become the shape of the café while at the same time it will become the café wall and ceiling construction.

It can become a new statement of contemporary art inside the museum, while at the same time it will bring the café visitors to the new experience that has reflection of contemporary art while at the same time it will offer an experience from the past, the present and the future.

In the relation with the new MCA stage 2 geometry, the new café will become an element that can reflect its position as a part of the stage 2 while at the same time, it can stand independently as a contemporary art object.

The third elements that make the shape of MCA-Café, Sydney are its own Logo. The half side of the logo is reflected on the café continuous wall to the ceiling on the MCA stage 2 side.

As the logo, itself reflect a journey from the past, present and the future that later on is able to radiate its design uniqueness and boldness to its vicinity while at the same it defines it position as a floating space.

Finally, the whole elements differences that form the café will become a new definition of space while at the same time it has a seamless interaction between its outstanding vicinity and contemporary art itself.

finishesSchedule description: >ACC: Accessories >BFF: Bar Front Finish >BOFF: Box Office Front Finish >BOTF: Box Office Top Finish >BTF: Bar Top Finish >CF: Ceiling Finish >D: Door >EQ: Equipment >F: Furniture >FF: Floor Finish >G: Glass >HW: Hardware >IDFF: Information Desk Front Finish >IDTF: Information Desk Top Finish >L: Lighting >OKBCFF: Open Kitchen Back Counter Front Finish >OKBCTF: Open Kitchen Back Counter Top Finish >OKBF: Open Kitchen Back Finish >OKFF: Open Kitchen Front Finish >OKMCBF: Open Kitchen Middle Counter Back Finish >OKMCFF: Open Kitchen Middle Counter Front Finish >OKMCTF: Open Kitchen Middle Counter Top Finish >OKTF: Open Kitchen Top Finish >PF: Paint Finish >S: Sanitary >SA: Sinks and Accessories >T: Taps

>WF: Wall Finish

The MCA stage 2, Ground Floor FF.1 Type: Amtico- Limestone Colour: LJ47 Limestone Cotwold Dimension: 305x 305mm/305x457mm/457x457mm Thickness: 2.5mm Surface texture: DS Finish FF.2 Type: Amtico- The Metallic Collection- celestal Colour: CD98 Blue Dimension: 305x305mm Thickness: 2.5mm Surface texture: Light Dimple Price: A$ 120 per net area m2 (refer to Amtico price list directly).

Contact: Amtico International Pty. Ltd. Ph (02) 9901 4199 PF Colour: White Apple Contact: Dulux CL Plasterboard finish painted, matte acrylic finish Contact: TBA L.1 Type: Downward light- Philips TLD new generation triphosphor fluorescent lamps- colour 80 series Code: TLD36/865, TLD36w/865,

Colour: Cool Daylight, 6500 Kelvin Dimension: 1220x26mm Price (before tax): A$10.5 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 L.2 Type: Downward light- Philips- Masterline, extra low voltage dichroic halogen lamps Code: 13678, EXN, 12v 50w, GX5.3 Colour: 3200K Beam spread: 38 degree Dimension: 50x40mm Price (before tax): A$14 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 L.3 Type: Wall/corridor light (bottom)-(substituted) Type: Porthole- TC-D- Louis Poulsen-Lightingmakers Pty.Ltd. Code: 57 43 750 010 Material: Stainless Steel Voltage: 230/240v 10W Dimension: Dim 125mm, L 95mm Contact: Tanya Kahwaiy, Louis Poulsen – Lightingmakers Pty. Ltd, ph. (02) 9667 0222 G Type: Pilkington LOF Eclipse series Thickness: 6, 10 mm Colour: Blue green Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222

F Type: Custom made sofa bench Material: Leather (/modified leather) Finisher and colour for the bench seater: mineral tanned leather, dyed through with a pigmented surface (semi glossy finishes).

Material for legs: solid timber with polished stainless steel veneer/ lacquered steel Contact: TBA

The Shop

WF Type: transparent glass.

Thickness: 10mm Colour/code: TBA Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 FL Type: Amtico- Marble Collection Code: SM6 Green Product: Alabaster Dimension: 305x305mm Contact: Amtico International Pty. Ltd. Ph (02) 9901 4199 FL Type: Amtico- the Stone Collection Code: EA Product: European Slate Dark Green Dimension: 305x305mm Thickness: 2.5mm Surface Texture: Riven Slate

Contact: Amtico International Pty. Ltd. Ph (02) 9901 4199 F Type: Custom made counter and shelves Material: Coloured Board- Wesfi formex Colour: Artic White Surface finishes: Satin (matte or semi gloss) Thickness: 33mm Contact: Wesfi, ph. (02) 9557 3883 HW Type: Door handle: polished- solid stainless steel/ aluminium.

Surface finishes: coated for protection Contact: TBA L.1 Type: Downward lighting- Philips- MRII extra low voltage halogen dichroic lamps (closed face) Code: 12314, 12v 35w, GX5.3 Colour: 3000k Beam spread: 30 degree Dimension: 35x35mm Price (before tax): A$ 7.5 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 L.2 Type: Downward light- Philips- Masterline, extra low voltage dichroic halogen lamps, with custom made light fixture Code: 13678, EXN, 12v 50w, GX5.3 Colour: 3200K Beam spread: 38 degree

Dimension: 50x40mm Price (before tax): A$14 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 L.3 Type: Upward lighting (enclosed ceiling)- PhilipsTLD Triphosphor fluorescent lamps- colour 90 series Code: TLD3696, TLD 36w/96, Colour: Cool daylight Dimension: 1220x65mm Price (before tax): A$ 9.2 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 L.4 Type: Fiberoptic glass Application: consult manufacture directly.

Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd., ph. 0417 794 377 CF Plasterboard colour white ivory (match with the colour board colour) ACC.1 Type: Laser cut copper sheet+ translucent glass underneath/ can be substituted with polycarbonate sheet (recessed on the floor) Finishes: Matte with coating Contact: TBA ACC.2 Type: Signage Material: hard board with steel veneer.

Finishes: high gloss Contact: TBA

Swatch Shop

WF.1 Type: transparent glass Thickness: 10mm Colour and code: TBA Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 Glass finishes: contact G. James Glass and Aluminium Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9828 9444.

WF.2 The back wall is painted plasterboard, with laminated hard board.

FL.1 Type: Amtico- Celestial Code: CD98, Colour: Celestial Blue Dimension: 457x457mm Contact: Amtico International Pty. Ltd. Ph (02) 9901 4199 FL.2 Type: Amtico- Accent colour- Swatch text Code: DS 11- white Code: DS 22- black Code: DS 51- red Texture: Smooth Dimension: custom- consults the manufacturer directly

Contact: Amtico International Pty. Ltd. Ph (02) 9901 4199 CF: Painted plasterboard, TBA Contact: TBA ACC. 1 Type: Body and Soul- Swatch Contact directly to the Swatch.

Contact: Swatch Sydney for further detail, ph. (02) 9223 2996 ACC. 2 Type: Signage Material: hollow matte aluminium (clear coated) Contact: TBA F Type: Custom made display case Material: Coloured Board- Wesfi formex Material (top): Solid Acrylic, 10mm Colour: TBA Surface finishes: Satin (matte or semi gloss) Thickness: 33mm Contact: Wesfi, ph. (02) 9557 3883 F.1 Type: Custom made wall display Material: Laminated hard board Colour: TBA Surfaces finishes: Satin (matte or semi gloss) Thickness: 33mm Contact: Wesfi, ph. (02) 9557 3883

L.1 Type: display light- eyeball lens- fibre optic lighting Code: EB-902 Material: Aluminium white Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd., ph. 0417 794 377 L.2 Type: floor lighting- fibre optic lighting Contact directly to manufacturer.

Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd., ph. 0417 794 377 L. 3 Type: Upward, recessed on the ceiling, Philips- TLD Triphosphor fluorescent lamps- colour 90 series Code: TLD3696, TLD 36w/96, Colour: Cool daylight Dimension: 1220x65mm Price (before tax): A$ 9.2 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 L.4 Type: Downward lighting, - Philips-Masterline, extra low voltage dichroic halogen lamps with custom-made light fixture.

Code: 13678, EXN, 12v 50w, GX5.3 Colour: 3200K Beam spread: 38 degree Dimension: 50x40mm Price (before tax): A$14 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494

The Box Office

F.1/BOFF/BOTF Type: counter Material: natural limestone Contact: TBA F.2 Type: secretary chair- Akaba- Gorka 2 with castor Seater finishes: Wood Contact: Stylecraft, ph. (02) 9331 8388 L.1 Type: below counter light- eyeball lens- fibre optic lighting Code: EB-902 Material: Aluminium white Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 L.2 Type: downward lighting- Philips- the Sfera PL984 Code: PL984/20 Colour: White Diameter: 102mm, height 60mm Aperture: 95mm Price (before tax): A$ 13 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 CF Type: Painted plasterboard, Colour TBA. Contact: TBA

The Ground Floor Toilet/Bathroom

HW.1/T (substituted) Type: tap- basin mixer- Intamix- Borma Code: 7101 Finishes: Satin Chrome Contact: Accent International, ph. (02) 9698 7588 HW.2 Type: handrail, Material: polished stainless steel tube Finishes: matte (coated) Contact: TBA F Type: basin- custom made basin Material: prefabricated polished stainless steel Contact: TBA L.1 Type: under floor lighting- fibre optic lighting Contact directly to manufacture.

Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 L.2 Type: downward lighting- recessed TBS600/TBS630 Code: TBS630 Description: direct surface mounted fitting Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494 ACC Type: custom made light tile

Dimension: 15x15cm Material: translucent polypropylene/polycarbonate Colour: white dusk Contact: TBA WF.1 Type: custom made ceramic tile Dimension: 15x15cm Colour: white blue Finishes: matte Contact: TBA WF.2 Type: toilet/bathroom door Material: laminated hard board with translucent glass Contact: TBA CF Type: painted plasterboard, Colour: TBA Contact: TBA S.1 Type: wash down WC suite- Keramag Colour: white (alpine) Contact: David Robertson, Johnson Sanitec (Australia) Pty. Ltd, ph. 0419 398 320 S.2 Type: Pareo urinal Colour: white (alpine) Contact: David Robertson, Johnson Sanitec (Australia) Pty. Ltd, ph. 0419 398 320

The Main Foyer Lift

Transparent lift, contact manufacturer directly.

Frame colour: matte solid black Contact: OTIS Elevator Company, ph. (02) 827 3600

MCA stage 2 Reception/ Security F.1/IDFF/IDTF Type: counter Material: natural limestone Contact: TBA F.2 Type: secretary chair- Akaba- Gorka 2 with castor Seater finishes: Wood (or black leather) Contact: Stylecraft, ph. (02) 9331 8388 L.1 Type: below counter light- eyeball lens- fibre optic lighting Code: EB-902 Material: Aluminium white Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 L.2 Type: downward lighting- Philips- the Sfera PL984 Code: PL984/20 Colour: White Diameter: 102mm, height 60mm Aperture: 95mm Price (before tax): A$ 13 Contact: Philips Electronic Australia Ltd., ph. (02) 805 4494

The MCA Café Sydney

ACC Type: custom made signage- typeface Material: hollow brass on steel construction Finishes: lacquered Contact: TBA CF Translucent glass on steel construction Type: Pilkington LOF, high performance tinted float glass.

Colour: Artic Blue Thickness: 6mm Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 Glass finishes: contact G. James Glass and Aluminium Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9828 9444.

D Glass door (transparent) with stainless steel frame (custom made), with 180 degree opening.

Type: Pilkington LOF, high performance tinted float glass.

Colour: Artic Blue Thickness: 10mm Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 F.1 Material: custom made chair, seater: translucent polyurethane sheet, colour white, with smooth surface Support: steel with lacquered finishes, matte finish (substituted)

Type: Easy chair Material: find the most similar material (consult for further detail) Colour: Aqua Contact: Stylecraft, ph. (03) 9690 4344 F.2 Type: custom made table Material: table top- translucent glass with stainless steel support (+ self contain fibre optic light) Finishes for the support: matte (substituted) Type: Gerona Material: stainless steel both top and base Contact: Stylecraft, ph. (02) 9331 8388 FF Translucent glass on lacquered finish steel construction, Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Type: Pilkington LOF, high performance tinted float glass.

Colour: Artic Blue Thickness: 10mm Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 L.1 Fibre optic lighting.

Notes: refer to sketch detail (Thought) for installation.

Contact the manufacturer for further technical detail Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377

L.2 Type: upward lighting, fibre optic light Code: FD 701sc Material: aluminium Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) for further detail.

Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 WF Double skin translucent glasses with tube steel construction as the bone.

Finishes for steel construction: lacquered, matte.

Thickness: 6mm Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 Glass finishes: contact G. James Glass and Aluminium Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9828 9444.

The MCA Café Sydney < Bar>

ACC Type: Human heat/movement activated double face LCD screen.

Function: to produce interactive double side contemporary image of human movement.

When human movement was captured from another side of the screen, it will be projected onto another side of the screen in form of contemporary/ abstract image, and vice versa, the double face LCD screens are human heat activated.

Colour: Black with frame match to the wall construction colour.

Shape: long rectangular Contact: TBA BFF.1 Material: solid translucent polyurethane Colour: Snow white Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA BFF.2 Material: custom made prefabricated concrete with strip canal as the accent Finishes: smooth with light texture Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA L.1 Type: fibre optic lighting to light up the front bar – translucent solid polyurethane- located behind the panel.

Contact the manufacturer directly.

Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 BTF Material: solid translucent polyurethane with fibre optic lighting underneath.

Colour: Snow white Texture: Smooth with light texture Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA EQ.1 Type: Dishwasher

Code: BDX209X- Blanco Dimension: 850hx600wx600d Finishes: Stainless steel with satinated aluminium door panel. Stainless steel door panel.

Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 EQ.2 (substituted) Type: underneath bench fridge -Skope Code: BC 860i-4SW and BC 860r-4SW/SL Finishes: stainless steel Contact: Goldstein, ph. (02) 9667 2325 EQ.3 (substituted ) Type: coffee machine- Boena- volumetric electronic coffee machine Colour: Black Contact: Goldstein, ph. (02) 9667 2325 EQ.4 (substituted ) Type: coffee grinder- Boena Colour: Black Contact: Goldstein, ph. (02) 9667 2325 HW Type: custom made glass rack Material: stainless steel wire frame Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA F Type: stool

Material: translucent polyurethane sheet (continuous) Legs: stainless steel/ lacquered steel tube Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) FF Type: service bar area flooring- Altro Code: VM2014 (VMSD)-anti static Colour: Cloud (grey) Material: high quality PVC flooring Price: A$37/m2, A$74/lineal metre Dimension: 2mm thick x 2m wide x 40m2 Contact: Australian Safety Flooring, ph. (02) 9319 4277 SA Type: custom made ice well Material: stainless steel Contact: TBA WF Translucent glass on steel construction Type: Pilkington LOF, high performance tinted float glass.

Colour: Artic Blue Thickness: 6mm Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: Pilkington (Australia) Ltd., ph. (03) 9212 222 Glass finishes: contact G. James Glass and Aluminium Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9828 9444.

The MCA Café Sydney <Kitchen> D

Type: custom made glass door with timber frame (stainless steel and Formica laminated) Contact: TBA EQ.1 (substituted) Type: standing refrigerator Code: AG2TEMP Colour: stainless steel Contact: CDT Concept, ph. (02) 9440 7178 EQ.2 Type: stove- Artusi from Arclinea Italy Material: stainless steel Contact: Sydney Reps. Distributor-TBA (substituted) Type: Gas –squareline-Blanco Code: GWRS5500X Material: Stainless steel cook top with stainless steel control panel and knobs Contact: Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 EQ.3 Type: Dishwasher Code: BDX209X- Blanco Dimension: 850hx600wx600d Finishes: Stainless steel with satinated aluminium door panel. Stainless steel door panel.

Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 EQ.4 (substituted) Type: underneath bench fridge -Skope

Code: BC 860i-4SW and BC 860r-4SW/SL Finishes: stainless steel Contact: Goldstein, ph. (02) 9667 2325 EQ.5 (substituted) Type: gas fryers- Goldstein- high speed restaurant fryer FRG Code: FRG1 Material: stainless steel Dimension: 456wx704dx1120h Contact: Goldstein, ph. (02) 9667 2325 EQ.6 (substituted) Type: microwave trim kits Model: MWTPW Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 EQ.7 Type: oven- 75cm- Blanco Model: BMS751X Material: stainless steel Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 EQ.8 Type: hood- island canopy- Blanco (covered with custom made canopy) Code: RHTE1200C Material: Stainless steel Dimension: 364hx1200wX746d

Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 FF Type: whole kitchen area flooring- Altro Code: VM2014 (VMSD)-anti static Colour: Cloud (grey) Material: high quality PVC flooring Price: A$37/m2, A$74/lineal metre Dimension: 2mm thick x 2m wide x 40m2 Contact: Australian Safety Flooring, ph. (02) 9319 4277 HW.1/T (substituted) Type: taps- Intamix- Borma- kitchen mixer 205mm spout Code: 7018 Colour: Stainless steel Contact: Accent International, ph. (02) 698 7588 HW.2 Type: custom made storage Material: stainless steel frame construction Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA HW.3 Type: recycle system- box system- Blanco Code: Blanco box system Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 L.1

Type: fibre optic lighting to light up the front kitchen –translucent solid polyurethane- located behind the panel.

Contact the manufacturer directly.

Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 L.2 Type: downward light- fibre optic light (above the middle counter canopy- enclosed) Code: FD701SC Material: Stainless steel Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: Kevin Monaghan, Digilin Pty. Ltd, ph. 0417 794 377 L.3 Type: Downward light- Philips- commercial lightinginterior recessed Code: LAU300/236M2 Luminaire 2X36W L/Loss C/W M2 Louvre Price (before tax): A$ 155 Contact: Philips Lighting, ph. (02) 805 4494 OKBCFF/OKBCTF Type: custom made counter- stainless steel laminated Material: stainless steel Finishes: semi gloss, light texture Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA OKBF.1 Material: custom made cast concrete with stainless steel laminated

Finishes: natural colour, smooth, matte finishes Notes: refer to the sketch detail (Thought) Contact: TBA OKFF.2 Material: custom made solid translucent polyurethane with fibre optic lighting on the back Finishes: smooth, light texture Colour: Snow white Contact: TBA OKMCBF/OKMCFF/OKMCTF.1 Material: custom made cast concrete Finishes: natural colour (chemical treatment finishes), matte Contact: TBA OKMCBF/OKMCFF.2 Type: custom made canopy Material: solid polyurethane with fibre lighting light on the top- middle Finishes: smooth, light texture Colour: Snow white Contact: TBA PF Type: Dulux- Low sheen acrylic Colour: TBA Contact: Dulux SA.1 Type: custom made sink Material: Stainless steel (substituted)

Type: sink-square line- Blanco Code: Blanco Plus 8S/ BPLU8S Dimension: 1210X500X160mm bowl depth Cut out: 1200X 480mm (6mm radius corner) Material: Stainless steel 18/10 Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488 SA.2 Type: sink soft line- Blanco Code: MESL/MESR Dimension: 998X493 and 130mm bowl depth Material: Stainless steel 18/10 Contact: Samantha Little, Major Electrical Appliances Pty. Ltd., ph. (02) 9621 8488

dissertationbrief

Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney, a place

for art and a living example of contemporary art in Sydney. A new image and its new role in the society toward next century.

Museum of Contemporary Art-Sydney where the location and its architecture has become a living object of Sydney past should have a new definition of contemporary art statement in term of current mission and beyond the future vision.

It is a cultural centre for Sydney society particularly and for all Australian in general as it is a place where they can trace the emergent of their nation.

As a place for exhibition of contemporary art, the museum envelope should be able to stand as a piece of contemporary art. It does not become a piece of contemporary art because it accommodates contemporary art object inside, but because it has the trace of the past that brought into the present time with new definition and dimension. It emerges as a living contemporary art because of its existence in the present time and can adaptable in the future term.

In term of digital technology, especially virtual reality technology media, the museum can use the advantages of this media and the advanced technology that will become more visible in the future to reinstate their vision. The vision to expand the museum in dispersed location in order to reach more audiences disregard time, distance and social boundaries.

The benefit with using digital technology as a part of their collection and as a new form of contemporary art museum for instance they can reduce the collection space storage with CDs collection or computer network facilities. They can also have more often collaborations or collections exchange with another contemporary art museums in another country especially for their permanent collections.

This method will not only give more opportunity to the wider audiences to see another countries collection in easy ways but also it will cut the museum operating cost. It not only will eliminate all impossibilities exchange procedures because of country custom policies or another invisible void.

The virtual reality itself can become a part of the collection, as it does not only as a media for communication but this is a new digital media that has contemporary art definition. It is present in the present time but it has the trace of the past and adaptable to the future term.

While the museum has already become one of Sydney cultural centre, with adoption of the new technology as apart of redefinition of contemporary art museum, the museum will bring together the past, present and future to the new Sydney lifestyle. A lifestyle that has dynamically grows as fast as the proliferation of digital technology, a new society that its cultural identity will be gradually replaced by universal cultural identity. It is a city where it nation no longer become it boundaries. It is a city where it becomes a part of the world community disregards their time and distance differences and political background.

Finally new image of Museum of Contemporary ArtSydney is a image where the museum itself stands as a contemporary art while it accommodates contemporary art objects both in the conventional form or in digital technology form. It has obligations to deliver its mission as a learning and educational leisure place while at the same time as a cultural centre where the culture definition itself has emerge to the new dimension of human civilisation universal cultural identity. Also it will be redefining the contemporary art definition, it does not longer mean an object in the present time, but an object that created in the present time that has trace from the past that might also contain reality and artificiality that created by digital technology. This is new definition of modern human civilization picture, where digital technology has no longer become a tool but as an essential part of their civilization.

Appendix <subject description <design brief with the client and MCA stage II brief with Graham Jahn <Museum of Contemporary Art Stage II Development Briefing Document <MCA Cinematheque Data Sheet- Jahn Associates Architects

<< Public restroom design and signage study.

Interior view from lobby toward lift and café entrance>>

<<Café view and lobby interior view from MCA stage II entrance.