Look both ways

Look both ways is one of eight commissioned art-trams part of Melbourne Festivals Visual art program in partnership with Creative Victoria and Yarra Trams. The theme for the 2015 commissions was Architecture and the City and so my response was to visualise the idea of demolition, as something familiar and evocative, but not necessarily celebrated. My commissioned tram was an A class tram running along route 70 and 75, from Wattle park to the Docklands. Look both ways reflects how cities, especially a great city like Melbourne, are in a perpetual state of change and renewal. At any one time there is constant demolition, clearing, redevelopment and construction going on in our urban environment. The spectacular void of the construction site, appearing in place of something that once was, is always a mesmerizing sight, even if the change is not welcome. While the demolition site can often be an emotional site of nostalgic loss and trauma, there is also the other more utopian aspect of demolition, that of renewal. The 'cultural value of the void' has been discussed by Herbert Muschamp in relation to the rebuilding of the 9/11 memorial site.* As a continuation of my PhD research, 'Look both ways' made use of the motif of demolition as another form of caricature both literal and metaphorical. The idea of demolition enabled the notion of visual flattening as both subject matter and methodology. The work itself was consistent both graphically and chromatically with my previous works. The Art Trams have been widely publicized and documented via Melbourne Festival and Yarra Trams. *http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-02-26/news/1995057040_1_loizeaux-explosives-demolition