Purpose
To reinstate 'The Pacificator Triptych’ in a 21st Century context employing 21st Century technologies and 21st understandings of the narratives linked to Benjamin Law’s 19th Century busts of Truganini, Woureddy and G. A. Robinson.
Objectives
1. Given the understanding that 'the triptych’ produced by Benjamin Law in Hobart in the 19th C seems not to have been exhibited outside Hobart and in the office of the “Hobart Town Courier” in 1836, and that all intellectual property constraints preventing copying have been exceeded, it is proposed that forensic digital copies of the bust/s be made and exhibited as ‘The Pacificator Triptych' in Tasmania.
2. Given that 21st Century technologies allow for accurate and scalable versions and forensic copies of three dimensional objects, employ these technologies to:
2. Given that 21st Century technologies allow for accurate and scalable versions and forensic copies of three dimensional objects, employ these technologies to:
• Explore the cultural narratives;
• Engage with current community sensibilities; and
• Identify the cultural sensitivities attached to Law’s busts.
3. Facilitate the publication of an anthology of texts and imagery relative to G.A. Robinson’s exploits in Van Diemen’s Land and their aftermath.
4. Generate and collect material that has the potential to be assembled in installations in variable formats in diverse locations and contexts.
5. Establish a networked research collection of material that includes:
• digital data;
• time-based material;
• ephemeral material;
• historic objects, etc.;
that cultural producers can access and employ in future productions.
Guiding Principles
1. The absence of, and presumed loss of, Benjamin Law’s bust of George Augustus Robinson, unavoidably carries ‘cultural cargo’ and narratives that has had an impact upon how Robinson’s time in Van Denman’s Land has been variously imagined and understood in a postcolonial context. Moreover, in a ‘visual sense’ Law’s bust gives, and has given, current cultural investigators insights into how Robinson saw, and imagined, himself in Van Diemen’s Land.
2. Technologies now available in the 21st Century provide new and emerging opportunities for the realisation of ‘cultural objects’ in a ‘forensic sense’ and in multiple contexts. Until relatively recently ‘three dimensional’ objects have presented complex inhibitors when it came to the realisation of accurate copies. This has changed and is changing.
3. In the context of Tasmania’s colonial histories, and shifting cultural imperatives relative to Australia’s Indigenous cultures, a re-examine G.A. Robinson’s role in the colonial aftermath is timely.
4. There is a growing awareness of a need to, and likewise increasing opportunities to, expand the methods and means via which cultural producers work (installations, objects, digital presentations, time-based works, etc.) can be accessed:
• on multiple platforms simultaneously;
• in variable and interfacing formats:
• in disparate locations and contexts; and
• do so rhizomically rather than hierarchically.
5. Given the continual expansion in the ways communication technologies are able to interface, interact and network there are emerging opportunities to build new research collections that are multidimensional collections. Importantly, these collections need not be in a single digital or geographic location or even be constrained by the physicality of an architectural structure or even the fiscal constraints of a bureaucracy. In the context of cultural research, the possibility of networking private and public collections offers ever expanding opportunities to develop new understandings and new cultural expressions.
Strategies
1. Secure access to the portrait bust of George Augustus Robinson that it is thought was he commissioned Benjamin Law to produce and that is now held in the State Library of Victoria. Likewise, secure access to the ‘Truganini and Woureddy busts.
• Having done so, make a digital scan of the busts in order to make a digital forensic copy without physically impacting upon the original in any way.
• Having achieved this, use the digital data collected to produce a multidimensional realisation of 'The Pacificator Triptych' shown in the Hobart Town Courier in 1836.
2. Use 21st Century technologies to realise forensically accurate and variously scalable versions cum copies of the three busts in order to:
• Explore the current cultural narratives;
• Engage with current community sensibilities; and
• Investigate current cultural sensitivities attached to Law’s busts in their 19th and 21st Century contexts.
3. Compile and publish in various formats and contexts an anthology of texts and imagery relative to G.A. Robinson’s exploits in Van Diemen’s Land and the colonial aftermath.
4. Build a collection of material, copies of memorabilia and digital data that has the potential to be used in the production of installations, events and publications in variable formats and contexts. Once, assembled make this material available to cultural producers working collaboratively and/or cooperatively.
5. Facilitate the setting up a network of interfacing websites and BLOGS that document research materials identified by makers, technicians, writers, et al who came together in one way or another via the realisation of ‘The Pacificator Triptych’.
6. Secure funding for discreet components of the project by means of grant applications to appropriate funding agencies, CROWDfundinf, corporate sponsorships and where appropriate in-kind support for specific components of the project.
TRUCANINNY & WOURADDY, BENJAMIN. LAW. HOBART TOWN, 1836
Australian National Gallery Cast: TRUCANINNY– Click Here
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