Whisper Tree was originally conceived as a sculpture for Blazing Swan (*) 2019 “Happy As Larry”.
Blazing Swan is the official Burning Man Regional Event held each year in the wheat belt town of Kulin over the East Long Weekend. It typically attracts 3,000 people over the week long event.
It received a small grant from Blazing Swan Incorporated towards its AUD$25,000 build cost.
Due to poor site infrastructure power was intermittent at best and the sculpture only ran for a handful of hours during the event – a truly frustrating experience for the artist.
Substantial additions to the media and code were make during 2020 with light to displaying it again at Blazing Swan. Due to global events the 2020 event did not go ahead so the sculpture remained in storage.
Blazing Swan 2021 went ahead and the sculpture came to site only to face failure once again of the event team to deliver working power. The sculpture sat forlornly on its shipping pallets during the event having been transported hundreds of kilometres for naught.
Not wanting to take risks with power at the pending 2022 event a sister project “Ra Accumulator” was designed. This stand alone solar / PV system would enable Whisper Tree to be completely free of grid / generator power. Unfortunately local lock down issues and concerns over participant safety at such a large / long event saw it cancelled again.
2022 has seen significant upgrades to the Whisper Tree project. On the physical front new LED display boards for the speaker drivers have been built and further solar power improvements made. On the performance front several multi-channel pieces of media have been created for the sculpture.
We currently hope Blaze in 2023 is able to go ahead.
In mid 2022 the piece was entered in to the internationally acclaimed Sculpture By The Sea and has been accepted to be exhibited in Cottesloe in March 2023 (Summer).
Works are currently under way to develop additional original content as part of the performance.