Edge of Shadow

Project Description

A realistic digital rendering of ‘Drawing Machine’ can be seen moving across the Mair Gallery in Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, New Zealand (CoCA). This aluminium frame makes its way across the floor passing through beams of light. Shadows appear and change: a full scale drawing with light. 

Walls and floor disintegrate. The machine is doubled, mirrored: Drawing Machine’s arc and tethering point remain. The plan grid of CoCA is a framework for new context and geometry. 

The projected shadows are materialised, casting their own shadows. These shadows need planes and surfaces to fall on: a new peripheral edge catches them.      

Here, VR uses realistic architectural rendering as a point of departure, towards forms that will never be built. Scale is maintained but it is immersed within a vastness of space. The real becomes an abstracted fiction. A new drawing is created, generated from the physical context of the gallery, but expanded beyond these bounds.

Project Credits

This project is supported by funding from the Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, The University of Auckland

Artist Bios

Aaron Paterson (NZ): Aaron paterson is a practicing architect and Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland. In the field of residential architecture, Aaron is widely recognized in New Zealand, and widely published and awarded. His research is focused on non-normative architectural representation of fabrication and assemblage in practice. https://www.pacstudio.nz/

Sarosh Mulla (NZ): Sarosh Mulla is a practicing architectural designer and Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland. His design work has been awarded by both the New Zealand Institute of Architects and the Designers Institute NZ. Sarosh is a founding member of design collective Oh.No.Sumo and co-designer of ‘Rainbow Machine’, a large-scale public artwork for the Auckland Council. https://www.pacstudio.nz/

Marian Macken (AU): Marian Macken teaches in design and media in the School of Architecture and Planning at The University of Auckland. She trained in architecture, landscape architecture and visual art. Her work has been acquired by international public collection of artists’ books, and she published Binding Space: The Book as Spatial Practice (2018), as part of Routledge’s Design Research in Architecture series. https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/profile/m-macken

Xiaoling Cheng (NZ): Xiaoling Cheng has recently finished her Bachelor of Architectural Studies at the University of Auckland. During her studies, she developed an interest in Cross Reality (XR) and digital materiality. Xiaoling pursued her interest during a University Summer Research Scholarship in which she participated in the project ‘Drawing Room’ to develop an immersive VR experience for an upcoming exhibition in the CoCA Gallery in Christchurch.