The Spatial Ecologies Labs are a project housed in the Victoria University Faculty of Architecture and
Design Innovation. The project is led by Tane Moleta and Mizuho Nishioka and is an open research frame
that seeks to encourage research projects examining the intersection of Architecture, Art and Design. As
noted in the naming of the lab, there is a focus on ‘presence’ and ‘materiality’. This is achieved by a focus
on fieldwork, collecting samples, and engaging with the materiality, systems and organisms of the greater
Wellington region. The research projects employ drone-based scanning of natural environments,
spatialised recordings of the natural environment, 3D printing of temporal river events, and the use of
augmented reality to enhance street performance in Cuba Street and an exploration of close listening and
local fungi.

The creative risk that this body of work entails is to challenge notions of how creative practice is enacted
in ‘live environments’, the work lays some critical refiguring of how most creative practices deem the
natural environment as a static expanse to be recorded, harvested, or built upon. The responses presented
are all time-based, and continually in flux, the works therefore, are by in large projections, screen-based,
sonic or kinetic.
 

Exhibitors: Jie Jin, Calvin Molina, Mitchell Johnson, Luke Cambell, Dhairya Chhaya, Brennan van den Bogart and
Freddie Cross

Images: 100 hours of flight
Author: Freddie Cross, (2024)

Technologies used: Moving image Drone, Still image, LiDAR Scanning, Photogrammetry
Idea: This body of work explores the intersection of the landscape and traditions of drawing in architectural practice. All citizens of Wellington understand the role of the sea as a powerful element in architectural
design, dynamic and endless, housing, streets and infrastructure creep ever closer to engage more closely with the delicate and valuable waters edge. In architectural practice, the tradition of drawing relegates
this important resource as a line, or series of lines.

Kihikihi is an interactive sound installation inspired by the New Zealand chorus cicada, which is renowned for its rhythmic and persistent sound that heralds the end of summer.

In the installation, the audience can activate ‘electronic insects’ by placing them on ‘electronic trees’: once contact is made, the insect starts glowing and chirping. The insects form an orchestra, their voices blending and interweaving into a polyrhythmic sound cloud.

This participatory installation provokes contemplation on the deeper interwovenness of our natural environment and the importance of insects to human survival. If the world-wide insect decline continues at its rapid rate, will artificial insects be all that we have left? Beyond their usefulness to the ecosystem, what are we losing culturally and emotionally? Who will sing for us in summer?

Website: kihikihi.info