Domain – A Contested Landscape. Ten Days on the Island Festival. Domain House, Hobart

materials: single-channel video projection, plaster, perlite

Photo credits: Peter Mathew

Tending to Domain House’s state of disrepair with material, architectural and cultural homeopathy, the artwork introduces a concentrated dose of ruin as a way of reviving the site – as a location, as a cultural entity and as a home.

A bespoke freestanding wall, reflecting the Vitruvian dimensions of the curator and Vitruvian virtues of architecture (it must be solid, useful and beautiful) is sited in the centre of the old Sculpture Room of Domain House. Cast in plaster and perlite the wall was fitted with low-voltage detonators, which on ignition produced a theatrical implosion, causing the structure to collapse in on itself.

The implosion was captured with a high-speed video camera and projected back into the site as a slow-motion pulsing loop of collapse, illuminating the residual rubble in its path.

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