OVERVIEW - (SPECIFIC DESIGN ELEMENTS)
THE MIRRORS
This artwork represents a journey from darkness to light.
Hence the first panel is a blue/black mirror, the second panel a gold mirror
and the third a silver mirror.
The use of the mirrors as the canvases encourages the viewer to “see yourself”.
This is the key message of the Trilogy.
The panels reflect on some of the history that has made us what we are today
and what we could be.
THE MOUNTS (COLLAGED)
The mounts around each canvas (mirror) utilise gift-wrapping paper. Burley Griffin’s Canberra, Utzon’s Sydney Opera House and the Spirit of Bennelong Story for Australia are all gifts that have been given and most importantly that we gave or can give to ourselves.
PANEL 1 MOUNT - WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN (BRONZE PANEL) - The Eye of Horus (the all-seeing eye) draws on Burley Griffin’s interest in the study of Theosophy. Theosophy in turn drew on the ancient wisdoms including the Ancient Egyptian culture.
PANEL 2 MOUNT - JØRN UTZON (GOLD PANEL) - Utzon envisaged that the sky would reflect in the tiles used on the roof of the opera house and here they reflect the blue sky. The blue lines are also representative of the underside rib design of the opera house roof arches.
PANEL 3 MOUNT - ‘THE SPIRIT OF BENNELONG’/PIERROT/YOO (SILVER PANEL) -
You need money and leaders with passion to make vision a reality.
The mount for this panel shows Australia’s money.
Outstanding community leaders of course feature on our money.
LARGER BACKGROUND MOUNT
The three individual panels are mounted onto a single large corrugated patterned panel. This panel identifies the artwork title. Each of the three individual panels is underscored with a relevant quote taken from these notes.
The featured phrases SEE NO EVIL - SEE, SPEAK NO EVIL – SPEAK,
and HEAR NO EVIL - HEAR are a call to action. The striped or corrugated pattern
used throughout all the panels draws on an element from the specially written story…
THE WALL
Some have commented that the artwork is complex, dense, difficult to understand and impenetrable. But isn't that the way this world has become?
An artist's job is sometimes to hold up a mirror to the way things are. And you're wondering why you can't decipher the complexity of this work? Really!
If you look hard enough though you can still see yourself through the busyness we have made in us. The artwork might better be described as a wall of distraction. But a wall is something that can be climbed over, dug under or through. And sensibly it can also be walked around. (On the journey make sure yoo stop intermittently along the way for a latte and to enjoy the view.)
THE SYMBOLS
This artwork is packed with symbols as this is the basis for much of the way we communicate today. We now look to say as much as possible in a minimum way no matter whether that is visually, verbally or in writing. It seems so much of our everyday life is now encouraged to be fast. This applies no matter whether it is our food, our work, our banking, our entertainment, our relationships and our communications.
This “quickening” I think has something to do with an increasingly desperate need to find an “experience of satisfaction”. It could be said that we are looking for ourselves.
How successful are we at finding satisfying solutions? Our world ever increasingly is a melange of colour, attitudes, understandings, values and styles. We humans are always looking for ways to say and do more with less. Unfortunately this so often can tend to create misunderstandings rather than clarity.
I do realise that certain people will interpret this artwork to mean the exact opposite of what is intended. It would be true to say we generally see ourselves in the world around us. It will be interesting to hear some people’s outlook on life as expressed in their understanding of this artwork.
THE GEOMETRY and ARCHITECTURE
The basic shapes of a triangle (pyramid), a circle (sphere) and a square (diamond) have been used on each panel as these basic shapes are building blocks of architecture.
These shapes also connect well with the idea and patterning of a Harlequin.
The geometry of Canberra is based on the triangle and circle. The use of these shapes has been influenced by the study of Theosophy according to Peter Proudfoot in his book titled “The Secret Plan for Canberra.”
Jørn Utzon finally settled on the shape of a sphere to evolve the roof sails of the Sydney Opera House.
Why exalt those involved in Architecture? Architecture or our built environment is a very accurate and highly visible reflection of the state of a society. Our homes, our workplaces, our civic buildings, our suburbs, our cities all reflect us. Architecture is a wonderful metaphor for our state of being.
In the final panel the triangle (pyramid), circle (globe) and square (diamond) are in union.
THE DOLL-LIKE FIGURES
Dolls have a link to the innocence and free spiritedness of children. Without reservation both Burley Griffin and Utzon’s outlook reflected this idealistic, clear and unrestrainable driving force. Australia is moving from its childhood into its youth as a nation.
For the purpose of the artwork my interpretation of the three harlequin figures is that of three outstanding examples of colourful individuals who either chose or choose to aim for the stars.
For their efforts two of these harlequins were more or less crucified by the publics they served. They were treated as “puppets” of the system.
Bennelong ultimately in his life didn’t fare any better. Pierrot is meant to represent the better everyday man or woman. I wonder sometimes if we treat ourselves ultimately any better than were the other harlequins mentioned?
You can interpret each of the figures as either two dimensional cardboard cut-outs/puppets/ caricatures or as colourful individuals/superheroes. You can just about classify yourself as a superhero if you can remain a kind, living and giving, breathing human soul in the western free market capitalist, economic rationalist, globalised, consumerist culture we have all contributed to developing. As ideals or concepts these systems like any other systems we create are fine.
I certainly couldn't say that I am anti any of the systems just mentioned but I am anti-imbalance.
The trouble starts when you add human beings current motivations, manipulations, actions and responses to these systems. They increasingly seem to be tools to magnify lesser elements within us. Perhaps all of this says something more pointedly about where we are choosing to live from inside ourselves.
Do we want to be wooed or hammered into becoming two-dimensional taking machines or are we willing to apply ourselves to develop as three-dimensional giving human beings?
How you see the figures in the artwork is up to yoo.
How do yoo see yourself?
BENNELONG (3 PANELS) Australian Pioneer of reconnection
Outlined on the three panels is the silhouette of the Aboriginal Bennelong representing the need for a spirit of reconnection or reconciliation.
The outline is traced directly from the portrait of Bennelong produced by an unknown colonial artist identified only as the Port Jackson Painter. Bennelong was a pioneer, a leader in his own way. Leaders when they walk their own path suffer under mediocre bureaucracy no matter what the framework of human bureaucracy they face.
Bennelong died an alcoholic rejected by both the new settlers and his own people.
He is buried no more than two kilometres from the Sydney Olympic Park site just across the Parramatta River at Kissing Point near Bennelong Park.
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PANEL 1 DETAILS
OUR FUTURE: STOP, LOOK & LEAP — SEE NO EVIL
Panel 1 of (3) Panels
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PANEL 1 FIGURE
- WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN
(American Architect of the City of Canberra) is seen as a string puppet tangled in the threads of the bureaucracy though he finally broke free. Burley Griffin saw no evil. He aimed higher than the evil of mediocrity.
He saw from the heart and this motivated his work.
Burley Griffin is also seen as a character from the phenomenon Star Trek. We can tend to make talented people like Walter Burley Griffin into superheroes and this can be unfair to them.
Following is an inspirational quote from the feature movie...
-‘STAR TREK - FIRST CONTACT’.
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* Star Trek is of course science fiction.
We are so far from this ideal as to be on another planet…Janet.
This Star Trek film also provided a warning in the form of characters known as the “Borg”.
These things were once human or various Universal species but have been turned into soulless machines inside what appear to be mostly human bodies. Their only mission: “to conquer and assimilate all races.” In the movie they become a cancer overtaking the Starship Enterprise.
They know no responsibility. They have no individuality except for the shroud within which they exist. They do not feel, neither do they care what they destroy. They have no empathy or kindness. They see only what will benefit them. This warning can be viewed today in our lives from individual, community, national and international perspectives.
Are we by our own practices becoming two-dimensional cardboard cut-out caricatures? Units that want to tame others to our way of seeing and doing things. Or do we wish to stimulate our own individual creative potential and encourage others to fulfill their potentials in their own ways?
While researching this project I was interested in one commentator’s quote that “Canberra was the best gift America ever gave to Australia”.
Marion Mahony Griffin’s rendering of her husband’s original plan for Canberra appears in Gold.
The figure superimposed over the Bennelong silhouette is that of the everyday man or woman. The question here is who finally realised Canberra?
The red street grid represents the arteries of what Canberra has become today.
Canberra is the intellectual centre of a living country.
The design on the mirror might also be seen as the view from the bridge of Star Trek’s Starship U.S.S. Enterprise taking in the Universe with a star lit sky. (Um no I’m not a Trekkie)
FOOTNOTE:
Curiously this morning while standing in my artspace the fired clay sculpture of Walter Burley Griffin
fell off the bookshelf it has been sitting on for the last four years and smashed into pieces.
I was nowhere near the piece at the time???
I have 'gold leafed' the break surfaces in the sculpture because
that is what Burley Griffin was on the inside...pure gold.
We do so need to learn to treat our leaders better. NW☺ 16/3/20
This Burley Griffin/Star Trek figure has now been "reworked". His "vision" is so sharp and bright he needs to wear shades.
(No puppet strings attached here.)
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PANEL 2 DETAILS
OUR FUTURE: STOP, LOOK & LEAP — SPEAK NO EVIL
Panel 2 of (3) Panels
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PANEL 2 FIGURE - JØRN UTZON
(Danish Architect of the Sydney Opera House) is represented as a Feste (a clown on a stick).
A jester is someone to be laughed at but the Italian origins of La Commedia dell’ Arte so often would prove that the clown was the wisest person in the kingdom.
The Feste has two faces reminiscent of the symbol for entertainment i.e. happy face/tragic face.
[The tragic face reflected in the mirror (not viewable here) may well be that of Peter Hall the Sydney Architect who put his heart and soul into completing the building amidst blazing controversy.
It was not easy for him and he has perhaps yet to receive the fullest acknowledgement for his contribution in completing the Sydney Opera House.]
Mr. Utzon is seen as a young man. The young face has no mouth.
Mr. Utzon spoke no evil. He was a gentle man.
While here in Australia Mr. Utzon suffered under inadequate bureaucratic thinking and this was only a reflection of the wider society’s outlook of the time.
There were those who treated him as a joke.
It is interesting that he is now woven into the fabric of Australia’s Dreamtime Story with sage status.
The last laugh goes to Mr. Utzon.
The Feste on a stick can be interpreted as his being burnt at the stake.
Utzon was different. He did not conform to the standards and values of the time.
He was not understood and was condemned for wanting to aim higher.
He saw from the heart.
To be theatrical for a moment the Sydney Opera House was the battleground for a huge leap in Australia’s cultural maturing - a renewal. And it was a hard fought battle.
Sydney Opera House now might be described as the cultural centre of Australia.
The opera house is sandblasted into the mirror surface. The building is shown at its state of completion around the time when Mr. Utzon was forced to leave the project in 1966.
The opera house image used is developed from a Max Dupain photo featured in an earlier opera house poster.
The figure superimposed over the Bennelong silhouette is that of the everyday man or woman. The question here is who finally realised the Sydney Opera House?
The Sun pattern shown in this work is reminiscent of the tile pattern appearing on the roof of the opera house. The Sun was an important symbol in the ancient Central American cultures. These Cultures provided key inspiration for opera house design.
In the 1995 opera THE EIGHTH WONDER by Dennis Watkins and Alan John the Architect’s separation from the project was likened to a sacrifice or an offering to appease the Gods.
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PANEL 3 DETAILS
OUR FUTURE: STOP, LOOK & LEAP — HEAR NO EVIL
Panel 3 of (3) Panels
PANEL 3 FIGURE
- ‘THE SPIRIT OF BENNELONG’ (the Dreaming)
& PIERROT/YOO (the Dreamweaver).
Each are part of the same whole.
The Spirit of Bennelong (a spirit of reconnection/reconciliation) has returned.
His outlined figure represents the foundation of our past and present and he stands as a portal to our future.
The Spirit of Bennelong is seen peering through the keyhole of his own silhouette.
He sees from the heart. You can also see a reflection of yourself in the mirror if you look hard enough. That says it all.
In the artwork the Spirit of Bennelong is wearing headphones presumably listening to what he wants to hear…clear, clean music to his ears.
The Spirit of Bennelong (and I for that matter) choose to hear no evil.
The abstracted (join the dots to complete the picture) jewelled ‘treasure’ rendering of the opera house draws on former NSW Labor Premier the late Neville Wran’s statement describing the opera house as “the Jewel in the Crown”. Its glittering presence here is as a key example of what it takes to realise large scale transformative ideas.
A ground plan featured within the diamond but obscured from the viewer outlines the centrepiece of the model vision. Let's call it the "The Bennelong Diamond".
'STORY FOR AUSTRALIA' is contained in a special protective and sealed ‘SURRENDER’ baton on this panel of the artwork.
SURRENDER BATON It's what's inside that counts
It needs to be protected because it could be toxic to some.
It contains a 'model vision for Australia' that includes a new Australian Flag design.
It's a rippa!
To be brought about successfully though this Story would need the creative and enthusiastic input of many many people. Their commitment and application to the process would require them to almost have a collective superhuman strength to make it happen successfully. Most definitely though the Story could become kryptonite to anyone trying to play Superman or Supergirl! You've only got to look at Utzon's and Burley Griffin's stories as previous benchmarks to see that outcome! |
The Guides (circa 1993)
Opera House Guides help keep the world turning. |
The circular clear glass panel (above) features the titles of benchmark Australian projects where individuals have contributed to building the social fabric of the Nation.
Tour Guides from the Sydney Opera House nominated these projects.
Various relevant coats of arms and symbols representing a cross section of groups of people responsible for maintaining the social fabric of our society are also shown.
The figure of Pierrot is symbolic of the better everyday man or woman irrefutably the key to our future.
The question is who will finally realise Australia’s Story?
The answer to that question is up to each individual.
Shown adjacent is the future face of Australia.
This is YOO!
When each person chooses a path to reconnect and bring their own Story (Dreaming) to life then as a follow on the collective national and international story of Australia will have a deeper significance and meaning.
We will share a better quality of life.
Pierrot is wearing a ‘dreamcatcher’ (or key) from his waist indicating that YOU need to create your own
Story for YOO.
Find the key to yourself.
THE WHOLE ARTWORK
IS A ‘BATON’
(OR KEY).
WHEN WE HAVE ENOUGH COLLECTIVE HEART, IMAGINATION, COURAGE, FOCUS, ENERGY AND COMMITMENT TO PICK UP THIS BATON AND RUN WITH IT THEN WE CAN CALL OURSELVES PROPERLY
A NATION.
PASS THE BATON ON.
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SUMMATION
It’s great to have these dreams of utopian cities or great cultural centres. Dreams though are a dime a dozen. Making the dreams a reality now that’s the hard part. The trouble with vision is that it is difficult. The stories of the creation of Canberra and the Sydney Opera House are two outstanding examples of that truth.
Vision is largely unchartered territory that confronts the status quo, established norms or accepted belief systems.
Vision also demands that resources, time, energy and money be focussed onto the Vision.
Usually this means diverting resources from other areas. This tends to be unpopular.
Vision also requires on going commitment, which is seemingly becoming rare in today’s quick fix world.
This all needs to be accepted and understood.
Who would want to go through what Burley Griffin and Utzon experienced?
The Late Bob Hawke on leaving his role as Prime Minister made this emotional statement in the company of a group of Aboriginal Australians …"I wish I could have done more but you can only take people as far as they’re prepared to go.”
Vision costs on many levels. When we are prepared to pay on many levels, then we will have not only a visionary plan but a visionary plan in action. Isn't renewal about understanding ourselves better?
'STORY FOR AUSTRALIA' is a fantasy vision for Sydney, NSW, Australia and the World that focuses on a key multi-functional architectural and environmental project with substantial national and international social significance.
The whole gist of the Story is that people learn to take more responsibility for themselves and learn in the process about themselves rather than blame or be dependent on some leader figure to solve the problems. You are the leader of your own life. Learn how to solve the problems yourself. See yourself!
A model foundation has been laid down with the writing of…
Frankly though I have yet to see proof that the whole thing would end up anything other than a repeat of history with politics and personalities high-jacking the process for other agendas. Sadly we humans so often don’t seem to learn much or at least take a long time in doing so.
Any operation social or otherwise brings forth its detritus.
On present observations any attempt to bring off the whole thing would just end up a mediocre compromise with the blame for the ensuing huge problems shafted home to some poor innocent(s). Can you imagine those undeserving individuals creaming off the spoils of any modicum of achievement resulting from realising even a portion of the 'model vision'.
All I can do is encourage people to follow the spirit of the script.
And the important script is the one you have to write for yourself.
Watch out for the kryptonite superhero!
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COPYRIGHT
Under Arts Law Australia Copyright of the model vision and all visual design
including a new Australian Flag design, mud map, any part of the story and story title
including all containments inside the "SURRENDER" baton within the artwork “OUR FUTURE: STOP, LOOK & LEAP” remains with the artist Neville Williams (the caretaker).
ARTISTIC INFLUENCES FOR
"OUR FUTURE: STOP, LOOK & LEAP"
★ Walter Burley Griffin & Marion Mahony Griffin - Canberra
★ Jørn Utzon - Sydney Opera House
★ The Spirit of Bennelong - First Nations Culture
★ Staff of the Sydney Opera House
★ The X-Men & Women
★ Baz Luhrmann
★ Brett Whiteley
★ Bridget Riley
★ Andy Warhol
★ Victor Vasarely
★ Max Dupain
★ La Commedia dell’ Arte
★ Star Trek
★ Superman (DC Comics)
★ Community Leaders featured on our money
★ Dolls
★ Symbols, geometry, architecture
★ William Shakespeare
★ Leonardo da Vinci
★ Artists of all backgrounds
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P.S.
The ‘Two up’ game featured on the shelves of each of the three separate panels is a reference to the risk factor involved in each of the projects. Two pennies have been thrown in the Burley Griffin Panel and have landed tails up 1920…the year Burley Griffin left the Canberra project. Two fifty-cent pieces have been thrown in the Jørn Utzon Panel and have landed heads up 1966..the year Utzon left the opera house project. Two silver dollars are spinning in the third panel, as is your life.
THE REST IS UP TO YOO.
The increase in denomination of coin accounts for inflation. March 2002
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
- Neville Williams
- Neville has a foundation in commercial design including graphic design, exhibition design and Corporate Identity. Essentially though he is an Artist, Curator & Imagineer. He was responsible for the design/renovation of the Sydney Harbour Bridge Pylon Lookout for 1988 Celebrations and the design and overseeing introduction of the identity for Westpac's Automatic Teller System (Handybank). His career background is broadly diverse including lecturing students in Graphic Design, working with environmental and indigenous groups, government and private institutions.
- He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Fine Arts) through the National Art School (2002) and studied Design for Theatre at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art). Retiring in 2020 after twenty six years work as a Guide at Sydney Opera House Neville continues to walk his path as an artist. PIC: Thomas Adams
View my complete profile
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REFERENCES FROM SOME WISE HARLEQUEENS
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NICOLA BRANDON REFERENCE ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ____________________________________
VIRGINIA PURCELL REFERENCE ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | | ____________________________________ |
EVIE PIKLER REFERENCE
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
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ADDENDUM
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