Cornwall Square as a named place no longer exists. Changing economic tenets and community and commercial needs have dictated the terms of its use during the 19th and 20th centuries, and its demise in the 21st century.
The most recent changes have left Cornwall Square behind without memorial. The unique social history connected to colonial settlement has been erased. A franchised Harvey Norman superstore now operates from the site where Launceston’s first colonial public market place stood.
While background study of Cornwall Square provided insights into local history and socio-economic factors, the Harvey Norman superstore furniture franchise was the focal point for gathering my art material. The concept underpinning my work was to formulate an art image from retailing, advertising and specific elements derived from popular commercial TV ‘lifestyle’ programs. The means and methods used to produce the art were in-store photography, actual merchandise, retail arrangement strategies and miniaturised models. The outcome of this work was to ascertain if the lounge-suite-as-image retained its aura of ‘aesthetic expendability’1 and collapsed into contemporary art when
transferred to the gallery space.
An assessment of the success of my presentation was reached
retrospectively. This reflection is focused particularly on my untested
1 D.McCarthy. Pop Art. (London : Tate Gallery Publishing, 2000), 9. Reyner Banham a member of the British Independent Group wrote ‘Theory and Design in the First Machine Age’ (1960). His theory called attention to an ‘aesthetics of expendability’ based on the constant need to stimulate market interest through stylistic change and planned obsolescence.
placement of a Harvey Norman retail lounge setting into the white box of the gallery space. The questions I asked were, did the creation of a
separate ‘room’ for the lounge setting function effectively; was there a need to place the setting in front of the large gallery window; how did the setting work in relation to my other artwork in the presentation?
My view of the effectiveness of the partitioned ‘room’ separating the lounge setting from the other elements of my presentation was that it successfully aestheticised a Harvey Norman lounge setting within the gallery. Placing the setting in front of the large gallery window helped to emphasise the degree of similarity and difference between store
environment and gallery. The window also had an unexpected benefit with its view out onto other students’ work. A series of drawings visible through the large window provided a foil for the incongruity of the Harvey Norman setting inside a ‘room’ in the gallery.
From an overall perspective I feel that the transfer of a Harvey Norman lounge setting from its retail environment into the gallery was the most successful element of my presentation. The other elements such as photographs, miniatures and video were reliant on connections made to this setting. In this respect various strategies of placement of the miniature settings, photographs and video were used to lift and enhance the
dynamic between the real and the unreal. The series of large digital photographs added a flat static aura of the retailing dream. The
introduction of movement through a looped video provided a link to my work and to the retail culture of the Harvey Norman site.
The Harvey Norman setting and the other elements of my presentation were planned to engage the viewer at different planes of perception. With
this in mind the partial separation of the ‘real’ setting by wall partitions from the other work acted effectively to allow differentiation between varying scales and tactility of photographs, video and miniature work to take place.
The artwork presented an alternative critique of retailing and advertising in the form of the lounge suite as merchandise and image, sourced from a site representing the market economy.
EPILOGUE
The history of retailing in Australia since colonization reveals the changes that have taken place in the structural design of shops and their facades as well as methods of selling goods. The rise of the superstore warehouse structure is yet another change that has occurred in response to global market forces. In one hundred years time market forces may present a very different scenario.
While editing my exegesis I had a dream that I entered a gateway into a large walled garden where a pathway led me through shrubs, fruit trees, flower and vegetable beds. I was told that this beautiful garden was once a car park. On the perimeter of the garden was a huge rambling crumbling cement building and in a doorway was the figure of a man. I approached him and asked him did he have a chair I could buy because I needed one at home to sit on. Inside the huge collapsing building were partitioned sections where people were sorting through goods. The man directed me to his section of the market where jumbled pieces of furniture, some complete some in pieces, were arranged. I bought an intact moulded plastic and metal chair dating from the early 21st century.