Digital r/p/m (revolutions per minute)

Proposition #1: Planetarium

Te Tuhi welcomes the opportunity to launch Digital r/p/m by Paul Cullen Archive as part of Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear 2022–2023. This interactive project realises in virtual reality a speculative proposal made by artist Paul Cullen in 2011 to install works from his r/p/m (revolutions per minute) series around the world at sites of scientific observation (initially presented as a series of interchangeable covers wrapping the publication r/p/m, published by split/fountain in 2011). Cullen proposed situating works in the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker (the Netherlands), the Octagon Room in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (England); Musick Memorial Radio Station on Naupata Reserve / Musick Point (Aotearoa); Linnaeus Garden in Uppsala (Sweden); and the Alhambra in Granada (Spain). These propositional installations explore how notions of space are simultaneously anchored within a given moment while also interlaced with historical traces left behind. 

The Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker is the first of four virtual installation sites, launched on Summer Solstice eve. The Franeker orrery was constructed between 1774 and 1781 by amateur astronomer Eise Eisinga in the ceiling of his canal house living room. He intended that the working model of the solar system would demonstrate that a predicted planetary collision involving the Earth, our Moon, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter would not occur. The clockwork-like mechanism operates by utilising a system of weights and counterweights and reduces the vast distances of the solar system to a domestic scale of 1:1,000,000,000,000 (1 millimetre: 1 million kilometres). 

Visitors can experience the Planetarium installation in virtual reality using the open-source platform Mozilla Hubs. More information, including documentation of Digital r/p/m, is available on the Te Tuhi website.

Paul Cullen

Paul Cullen (1949–2017) studied various disciplines, all of which informed his artistic practice and methodology. He graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Science in 1971, a Diploma of Fine Arts (Hons) in 1975, a Master of Arts in 2000 and a PhD in Fine Arts in 2007. Cullen was a sculptor and installation artist. His celebrated career has seen his work exhibited nationally and internationally and he was the recipient of several awards and residencies including: Mot et Chandon Artist Fellowship, France (1996) and a Senior Fulbright Award at Auburn University, Alabama (2012).

Cullen's career spanned 40 years and he exhibited across Australasia. In the last two decades of his career he pursued exhibition and itinerant projects in numerous international centres including Manchester, London, Halifax, Stockholm, Sydney, Melbourne, Seoul, Chung-Buk, São Paolo, Cheongu, Alabama, Los Angeles, Marfa, Munich and Berlin. 

Paul Cullen Archive was established in 2017 to continue an archival process of artworks started by the artist in 2016. The archive also explores alternative archival modes to generate explorative methods and categories for structuring content, including the creation of 3D models of artworks and speculative publications.

Commissioned by Te Tuhi and curated by Janine Randerson. Supported by Creative New Zealand

Visit the project on Te Tuhi's website here; part of the weather station: Te Moana Nui A Kiwa, Aotearoa (Great Ocean of Kiwa, New Zealand) - find out more here.