LEVEL 2, GALLERY 21
DALE HARDIMAN
AUSTRALIA, BORN 1990
LIVES AND WORKS IN MELBOURNE
STEPHEN ROYCE
AUSTRALIA, BORN 1976
LIVES AND WORKS IN MELBOURNE
PROJECT
Open Garden: Digital Mirror 2020 is an interactive lighting design that reflects multiple images of its viewer in the repurposed screens of smart phones. Alluding to the concept of the ‘selfie’, the design transcends the basic functionality of both a light and a mirror, and speaks to the ever-expanding role of technology in shaping the way individuals view themselves.
Engineered from 32 LCD screens sourced from discarded smart phones, the work displays the viewer’s reflection in realtime across all of its individual panels. Programmed with facial recognition, the work functions like the camera in a smart phone to track human faces.
Featured as part of Hardiman and Royce’s larger work Open Garden 2020, the design references the term ‘walled garden’ and speaks to the closed system that prevents a digital device’s owner from adapting, reconditioning and recycling its parts and technology for their own purposes – a strategy which is considered a significant impediment to the recycling of electronic devices. Open Garden: Digital Mirror belongs to a collection of contemporary art and design works for the NGV Triennial centred around the theme of illumination.
ABOUT
Dale Hardiman is a Melbourne-based contemporary designer, the co-founder of furniture and object design studio Dowel Jones and co-founder of Melbourne based design collective Friends & Associates. Exhibiting nationally and internationally, his works have been presented at London Design Week in 2014; Salon del Mobile (Milan) in 2019; and Melbourne Design Week 2020. Hardiman’s work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of South Australia.
Stephen Royce is a Melbourne-based industrial designer who has specialised in product and systems design for the past 15 years, overseeing the design and development of consumer digital products and technology. Collaborating with Australian designer Dale Hardiman since 2018, Royce developed experimental lighting and interactive works for exhibition at Melbourne Design Week 2020.
Generously supported by NGV Supporters of Contemporary Design and Architecture.