Negentropy
Installation and public performance
Upside down umbrellas
2008
Negentropy was a public land art piece and performance commissioned by Lesley Perkes from Art At Work (AAW!) and the Newtown Management District for the When Life Happens festival in Newtown. It consisted of 200 large upside down white umbrellas. The umbrellas where installed in 4 different sites throughout Newtown. When Life Happens is an HIV and Aids awareness festival. The piece was inspired by the concept and phrase Negative Entropy which was introduced by Erwin Schrodingerin in the popular science book 'What is life?', the phrase was later shortened to negentropy to express it in a more positive way: a living system imports negentropy and stores it.
The umbrellas turned on thier heads move from being purely protective objects into vessels with the ability to hold something. These umbrellas held 4 life giving elements for the duration of the festival. Air, water, light and earth. The light was absorbed by solar panel lighting installed in the umbrellas and the earth held medicinal herbs which grew for the duration of the festival.
The performative aspect of the piece involved handing out 100 of the umbrellas to people on the night of the festival opening. The umbrellas where altered so that you could carry them upside down, the people where asked to carry the umbrellas for the evening as a call for the celebration of life and those elements which give life.
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