New Millennium Fountain

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: Scott Mitchell was one of 7 rising Australian artists invited to create bold work for NEW13 at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA). Charlotte Day curated the show. Mitchell's work, 'New Millennium Fountain' (NMF), was conceived as an experiment conducted with the building of ACCA. NMF took sunlight and reflected it into the depths of the gallery space. There the fractured light played upon two inflated (solar) balloon structures, illuminating their form and highlighting a fragility within the beams of light. The work used knowledge gathered from amateur DIY sources to construct four heliostat mirrors capable of reflecting sunlight from the roof of ACCA through a further 33 mirrors to the back galleries spaces. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: NMF continues Mitchell's investigation into practices of hacking and modding. It established a material connection between the outside of ACCA and it's inner galleries spaces. Fluctuations in sunlight, resulting from the movement of clouds, were introduced into the gallery. Through this connection to the outside the mechanisms that position art as separate from everyday experience where reveled and challenged. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: NEW13 is a major national show supported by The Balnaves Foundation, a philanthrophic foundation set up in 2006 by Neil Balnaves AO. ACCA is supported by Arts Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts and City of Melbourne. 'Fountain' and NEW13 received widespread coverage, including The Age (Andrew Stephens, 'Shedding sunlight on DIY art' 12 Mar 2013 and Robert Nelson, 'Ideas travelling at the speed of light' 3 April 2013); Broadsheet (12 May 2013), Art Forum, and online journals Co/Incide (16 April 2013) and Smartplanet, CBS Interactive (30 April 2013). Mitchell was interviewed by ABC Radio National (4 April 2013) and by ACCA for a 4-minute video on its site. The NEW13 catalogue (ISBN 978-0-9871732-7-0) contained an essay on Mitchell's work by Pia Ednie-Brown.