Digital r/p/m (revolutions per minute)

Proposition #4: Linnaeus

On 31 March 2023, we launched the final of four virtual installations in our current weather report, Digital r/p/m propositions by Paul Cullen Archive. 

This interactive, virtual project realises a speculative proposal made by artist Paul Cullen in 2011 to install works from his r/p/m (revolutions per minute) series around the globe at historical centres for scientific study (sites that the artist had visited and researched).

The Linnaeus Garden, Uppsala, is the last of four virtual installation sites. The Garden was established in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist and physician who formalised the modern binomial classification system of living things. Plants in the garden are organised according to this system and many were catalogued by Linnaeus himself. Central to the Garden is a small pool, originally intended to collect rainwater and distribute it via piping to the plants in the garden.

For Linnaeus Garden, Cullen proposed two works, Table R:1 and Table R:2, which expanded on the water circulation component of the earlier work Recent Discoveries, exhibited at Te Tuhi in 1994. In this virtual rendering of these unrealised works, a digital model of the garden and Orangery room of the Linnaeus Museum is situated directly on the r/p/m proposition #4 publication cover. Table R:1 is positioned directly next to the garden pool with plastic tubing connecting it to Table R:2, located within the Linnaeus Museum, facilitating the flow of water between both works.

Using LiDAR and photogrammetry, the archive has created 3D models of the r/p/m sculptures in Cullen's former studio and collaborated with international creatives to realise scans of the observatory sites. The r/p/m virtual installations explore how notions of space are simultaneously anchored within a given moment while also interlaced with historical traces of weathers left behind.

Visitors can experience the Linnaeus 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.