tense
Year: 2023
Material: Timber, Curtain Sheer, LED strip, Batteries
Dimensions (W/H/D): 650mm x 650 x 650 each cube (10 cubes)
Tense was a theatre performance piece by Motueka based group Te Oro Ha. Creative director Donna McLeod gave me a brief for the set design which was it should have 10 self-lit components to represent the ‘Tenths’. It should be designed to travel, and it should be able to form a stand-alone sculpture for display.
I built ten cubes, 650mm in Height width and depth, and stretched polyester curtain sheer through the frame to create 3 different shapes within. The shapes were simple such as a triangle, a Monopoly house, and an ‘X’. The curtain sheer gave the effect of a soft panel and the cube allowed stacking one on another to create volume. Each cube had a strip of battery powered LED along the inside front edge and was switched on as it was placed during performance. Each box came on stage individually in relation to the story, the triangles related to Maunga/mountains, and were also placed upside down to relate to bad times. The Monopoly house shape related to property in the story, and upside down when property was lost, and the X shape was to support kete (woven bag) on, so needed a solid section on top (clear acrylic), and the X motif related to Ten as a roman numeral.
These cubes were brought on one by one, and apart from 3 ‘X’ cubes they were stacked to form a waharoa or whare. The top section was pulled together to form the triangle of the waharoa on stage at the finale, a slightly hair-raising action but through the help of good magnets it stuck every time!
