Cast Over

Cast Over is one of our ‘Pandemic Series’ - three projects that very nearly happened, but were cancelled or postponed due to COVID.

In 2020 we received a grant from CNZ  to research and develop the plans for a large scale immersive art installation site specific for the CoCA Mair Gallery space. The central idea was that we hold a series of workshop in which we explore the gallery space, develop our ideas and experiment with space and materials, then invite an audience, to gather feedback on their experience and interaction. This would allow us to refine our ideas until we come to one final proposition for the art work. 

We completed the first series of workshops under an increasingly threatening COVID. Workshops started at the gallery, then eventually were held in our home studio during an extended lockdown. 

Despite the fact that we were not able to exhibit this installation at CoCA due to the change of direction for CoCA as a result of Covid, we do have the basic plans and ideas for a new artwork, for which we endeavour to find a different gallery or space to exhibit in. 

The Experience

Cast Over augments the presence of the South facing skylights that you are immediately drawn to while ascending the stairs of CoCA. You are struck by the gigantic drapes of silk fabric hanging overhead. They loop down in the Mair gallery, one loop suspended from the edges of each skylight. They are in constant movement, being tightened and loosened on their rollers by pulleys attached to motors.  Pulley ropes fall tight from the rollers down to the gallery floor, where their motors are encased in hand crafted wooden boxes. 

The movement creates a voluminous, tumultuous sea of fabric - at times the gallery is full of the fabric loops through which the audience can walk, duck and hide, at times the fabric is pulled tight and the gallery is instead full of colour, the fabric filtering the sunlight that flows into the room from the skylights above.

The Concept

The push / pull of the economy versus the environment is the greatest tension in contemporary society. As we are propelled into the fourth industrial revolution, the more we realise we’ve become victims of an unpredictable feedback loop. At any moment the simmering state of calm could come tumbling down around us. 

Cast Over explores the concept of machines and their connection to the fine envelope of atmosphere that surrounds us. An expansive sky of fabric inhales and exhales shifting from an open world of endless opportunity, to one that smothers and consumes its inhabitants. The work never stops working. Inside the unpredictable state of motion and activity, we are at the whim of the machines, small boxes on the landscape working on our behalf to keep the conveyor belt of industry moving.

Another theme the work navigates is the notion of travelling while staying in the same space. Coming to terms with a new era in which travel is restricted, firstly by climate change and secondly Covid19, Cast Over reflects how this endless movement and growth has now been forced to occur within our own spaces instead of externally.