Sound Art and Public Space
Most people walk straight past the eight speakers set below the promenade at the entry (or departure) point to Wynyard Quarter, Auckland’s new waterfront development, not noticing the soundscape installed there as part of a public commission by Rachel Shearer. When I last visited, the speakers were playing deep drone textures accompanied by watery sounds, which, to a casual listener, may not have been obviously out of place but were distinctly louder than natural. Even so, dozens of oblivious tourists and locals filed past to explore the new spaces, sometimes queuing directly over the speakers while they waited for a drawbridge to come down after it had let boats in or out of the marina.
Public art can be a fraught business, especially when it is part of a large development in which mainstream media and politicians are involved and the project becomes a football for political point scoring, if you’ll excuse the pun. Over recent years Auckland has undergone a huge amount of overdue infrastructure redevelopment, spurred on by the requirements of an international sporting event, which brought with it another layer of interference from usually disinterested interest groups. Debates over new stadiums and extensions became deeply mired in debate, leaving little time for large-scale visionary solutions. But amidst all this, the less visible western port zone, now known as Wynyard Quarter, was left alone to progress relatively unhampered, as if the other controversies were a decoy.
When Wynyard Quarter was officially launched on 6 August 2011 (conveniently timed with the weekend of the Auckland Art Fair, staged in Wynyard’s new waterfront events centre), Auckland suddenly found it had the kind of waterfront development a harbour city deserves, with open... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Rachel Shearer and Hillery Taylor Architecture, Silt Line, 2011. Cast concrete tidal steps. Auckland Council Public Art.
Judy Darragh and Rachel Shearer, Data, 2011. Recording, player, speakers, plastic straws, aluminium tape, dimensions variable.
