This is a plastic prayer, blowing in the wind, imploring all that find shelter under its rainbow glory – for the love of sea turtles, give up the one hit wonder plastics.Every year the sea of beautiful dancing bodies parts, leaving a desert of waste, colourful flotsam all washed up. Whilst the festival love might not last all eternity, that plastic waste will.
Festivals and Waste
Glenn has worked at Falls, Splendour in the Grass and Bohemian Beatfreaks festivals in waste recovery and researching how to challenge the phenomena of massive festival waste. The tent waste that will be used on this installation have been sourced from these festivals.
Artistic Vision
Walking over the hill, the installation immediately catches the eye as the rainbow streamers dance in wind, as hectic as the Australian bush can blow it.
Coming closer, you can see a group of patchwork pyramids under their kinetic arms reaching into the sky. The larger central pyramid is filled with large white balls and wrapped in lots of bubblewrap.
Up close and there are three little nooks. You can enter a nook and be surrounded by bubble wrap, tent skins and these crazy balls in the big pyramid. A cosy and abstract rest stop at the festival.
Later in the night, the balls in the pyramid will come alive with pulsating lights, and surround people with pulsating rainbow above and below. And underneath it all, you can see the familiar colours and textures of rubbish.
These materials are so much more than rubbish. They can be art or anything that is more valuable than just rubbish. Why are we wasting all these valuable materials?
Sourcing – Reducing waste
- Poles – second hand from online and building salvage
- Bubble wrap – diverted industrial waste
- Roof skin – tent and marque skins from festival waste
- Streamers – tent skins from festival waste
- Beach balls – second hand form another art installation
- Power unit – new, Australia
- LED Lights – new, China
- Rope, Screws, Star Pickets, Tape – new
Construction
The poles will be made from electrical conduit or other strong industrial plastic pipes.
Each complete pole will comprise of 3 parts:
- Bottom poles (~100mm) Provides the structural support. Outside pyramid poles will be 3m and the internal pyramid poles will be 4m
- Top poles (~33mm). 3 top poles for every 1 large pole. These distribute the wind load for strength and also provide flex in the poles to allow the wind to bend them, increasing the dancing effect. Outside pyramid poles will be 3m and the internal pyramid poles will be 4m
- Streamers – these will be made of high strength tent waste, taped to the pole. I have tested this technique in very high winds. These will catch the wind and provide the rainbow dance.
The poles will be constructed on the ground and once installed, we will have no access to the top section of the pole.
Tying the structural ropes will be at ground level or requiring a small step, removing working from heights issues.
Outer Pyramid – Three poles will be tied together to form a pyramid, forming a very strong structure. Each pole will be taped to a star picket driven into the ground, creating a very strong anchor.
Inner Pyramid – Will consist of three vertical poles, joined to star pickets at ground level. The three additional poles are positioned to create a pyramid. These are joined to star pickets at the base and tied off at the top.
Once the four pyramids and ropes are in place, we will install and test the lighting and do an additional safety audit.
The central pyramid will be installed with the beach balls and other aesthetics.
Lighting setup – Will comprise of a central weather box containing two transformers and one central controller feeding the central LED strip and 3 sets of LED strips that cover the roof and floor of the three external pyramids.
This structure will then be wrapped with the bubble wrap in a way that we have secret access to the power unit for safety. We will ensure enough heat loss occurs and audit any materials close to the power unit for any temperature related issues.
The floor will then be installed with layers of bubble wrap
The roof will then be installed. Both the floor and roof materials will then be secured down by the perimeter and inner pyramid poles. The poles will have regular holes along the length and 300mm screws will be drilled through the tube and into the ground, providing a large amount of distributed anchor points.
Once this is in place, the roof skin will be further re-enforced, as this will be the weakest part of the structure in context to high winds.