One Hundred Years From Here

BACKGROUND Design 29: Creating a Capital, designed by Lora Miloloza and curated by Jane Macknight, offered a once in a century opportunity to view up close the original designs of the 1911 Federal Capital City Design Competition finalists. On display were the internationally acclaimed designs by Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin (winner), and runners-up Eliel Saarinen, Donat-Alfred Agache as well as the entry of the Australian team: Walter Scott Griffiths, Robert Charles Coulter and Charles Caswell. Innovative for the time, the exhibition utilised iPads with an application to enable further exploration through augmented reality technology - involving a range of films, sound, photographs and documents. CONTRIBUTION Samartzis provided a specially commissioned soundscape composition to enable an immersive experience for visitors exploring the history of Canberra's creation. In One Hundred Years from Here Samartzis created a soundscape homage to this celebration of our federal history. Each of the individual 'captured' sounds referenced the passing of 100 years, during which Canberra developed from an isolated pastoral area to a modern federal capital. The soundscape aurally intertwines the sounds of the original natural environment, with the farming in the area, the lake formation, and the later urban landscape, with cultural and symbolic icons, such as Canberra's Carillion. This composed soundscape presents short vignettes of sound followed by silence across a sixty minute repeating interval. It complements the visual focus of the exhibition - the original designs. SIGNIFICANCE Significance is attested to first by the commission by the National Archives of Australia to create a soundscape as part of Canberra's centenary celebration. The significance of this event can be further measured by the national importance of this project as well as the iconic status of the venue in which it took place and the audience of just over 100,000 it attracted.