Sundial
A meditation on time, space, and ecology, Sundial provides a window into North Sydney’s unique bushland.
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About the artwork
Sundial is an immersive digital artwork created by artists Indigo Hanlee and Michael Thomas Hill.
Sundials are ancient clocks which tell the time in a semi-circle form through interaction with sunlight.
Sundial shows the passing of time as images of the sun and the moon progress across the 12m wide screen situated at the southern concourse at Victoria Cross station.
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As the position of the sun and moon move across the sky, they trace daily hours and annual rhythms of the seasons.
To make Sundial, the artists recorded hundreds of hours of footage across all seasons in the North Sydney remnant bushland. This footage was refined and edited to create a giant 24-hour digital sundial of images of the local natural world from morning to night, that changes through the year.
Artist Statement
"Sundial is two things - a digital sundial that indicates the hours and seasons, and a video art piece that draws the viewer into an endless journey through North Sydney’s remnant bushland.
Taking the form of half a sundial, video footage slowly plays on a high-resolution LED screen at the southern entrance of Victoria Cross station. Within the arced frame, the position of the sun and moon move across the sky, marking the hours of the day. The footage also slowly shifts to match the seasons of the year.
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Over the past few years, we have shot hundreds of clips of North Sydney bushland to create an extensive video library for this artwork. The final screens use a bespoke C++ app to randomly select footage that matches the local time and season, while also ensuring that the order of the clips are never the same.
As a meditation on time, space and ecology, Sundial provides a window into North Sydney’s unique and changing environment."
Artist Biography
Indigo Hanlee and Michael Thomas Hill work collaboratively with the design studio Lightwell to create digital artworks for public spaces.
As an art and design partnership, they have developed a number of works that combine dynamic audio or visual media with sculptural elements.
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They use technology in a different way, creating works that are unexpected, ambient, contemplative, and refer to the rhythms and forms of nature.