There is a talk on tomorrow night at the RAIA that I have helped organise, titled ‘Spatial Investigations’.

Four artists and architects will talk about their work in the context of how art is able to deal with spatial relationships in ways that architecture often cannot. Given the complex requirements- contractual, functional, legislative - architects often struggle to make a clear statement about the occupation of space. However, within the art world, many artists are posing questions and formulating spaces which force us to view the world in new and unexpected ways.

It is on Tuesday 30th October at 6:30pm the RAIA
3 Manning Street
Potts Point NSW

The artists speaking are:

Glenn Clarke

Joanne Jakovich

Margaret Roberts and

Lara O’Reilly.

I hope to see you there!

This year will see two games released in which rethinking spatial organisation will become the principle gameplay element. Yes.

Thus eliciting all the moral dilemmas surrounding console choice I thought that I had moved on from long ago. I thought that I would be fine with just a Wii, but it appears that that little box of wonder is not enough, and that all three are now back on the agenda….

First up is Echochrome on the PS3 and PSP. It is a simple enough game - get from point A to point B via a series of checkpoints. The route that is navigated, however, is at first glance impossible. Stairs lead nowhere, pathways do not connect and there are holes everywhere.

Rotating the view however, joins paths making them accessible, puts holes over the top of solid ground and blocks gaps from view making them disappear.

We are told that are five basic laws:

• Subjective Translation: Changing your perspective can connect paths.
• Subjective Landing: If an object looks to be below you, your character can land on it.
• Subjective Existence: If you can’t see a gap because it’s obstructed, a path exists.
• Subjective Absence: If you obstruct a hole from your vision, it no longer exists.
• Subjective Jump: By rotating your perspective you can jump to new areas.

All of this is best described through the wonders of the moving image:

The Second, Portal, is a mini-game spin off from Half-Life 2 in which you are armed with the ‘Aperture’ weapon, a device that acts like a short range wormhole creator.

Point it at a wall or floor to open an exit point, point it somewhere else to open an entry point. Then jump through. Or open a hole in the floor, drop a box into it, and see it knock over a sentry gun on the other side of the room. Or make a hole in the ceiling and one in the floor, and jump into an infinitely deep hole. Awesome. Again, the video makes it much clearer…

The possibilities are, of course, infinitely sweet.

I learnt to swim at one of these pools, waking up at dawn to walk down to the pool with my cousins every morning of every summer for far too many years. We would trudge down, get shouted at and our strokes demolished by an ex life guard by the name of Johnny who it seems, had never spent a moment out of direct contact with the sun and had the skin to prove it. If Johnny was feeling particularly nasty, he would lead all the kids up to the point, and instruct us all to jump and swim back to shore.

Sydney, as we all know shares one of its edges with the Pacific Ocean, and another with the Blue Mountains. Along the eastern edge are many beaches, and to my surprise in putting this post together, almost all of these beaches has its own pool carved somewhere into its rocky perimeter.

The geometry of each is slightly different. They are skewed rectangles, triangles, they are of indeterminate length - although most are around about 50m - they are embedded along the edges of cliffs, they sit solitary on reefs, they occasionally like at Narrabeen, spectacularly hinge off the point of a peninsula. At Wylies Baths they play host to a wonderful timber platform. At Collaroy, the ocean side edge of the pool bends as an abstraction of the bend of the cliff behind. At South Bondi they have a mythical status and provide the foreground to fine dining and summer boozing while at North Bondi, the pool recalls Corb’s ear of God at La Tourette.

So, from North to South here are Sydney’s 26 ocean pools:

Palm Beach

Whale Beach

Avalon

Bilgola

Newport

Mona Vale

Narrabeen

Collaroy

Dee Why

Curl Curl

South Curl Curl

Freshwater

North Steyne

Manly - Fairy Bower Pool

North Bondi

South Bondi

Bronte

Clovelly

Coogee

Wylie’s Baths

Maroubra

Malabar

Cronulla

Shelly Beach

Oak Park

[I am no expert on these things - if I have mislabelled one of the pools, or missed anything, then let me know!]