A Forest of Lines: An Interview with Pierre Huyghe

The Sydney Opera House, one of the world’s most recognisable buildings, is situated on Bennelong Point: located at the northern end of the commercial district of Sydney, Australia’s biggest city. This space, jutting out onto the Harbour, is dominated by the physical structure of the building’s exterior which consists predominantly of a heavy granite base and the, seemingly, lightweight soaring shells. There is, however, another aspect to space on this site that is rarely considered: that generated by the illumination of both the delineated physical spaces and the spaces that are ‘created’ by the various lighting designs deployed across the built structure and the areas that surround it. This paper will utilise Jørn Utzon’s ‘Descriptive Narrative’ – written to capture the conception of the building as the architect viewed it in his mind – as a springboard to examine the illumination of the Sydney Opera House, and how lighting creates and defines the internal and external spaces at a very complex performing arts centre, as well as supports the illumination of these areas. Drawing on the disciplines of architecture, lighting design and the performing arts, this paper will examine the illumination and the important, although often neglected, role lighting plays to reinforce the metaphysical journey outlined in the ‘Descriptive Narrative’: a journey that patrons take as they move through various spaces between their arrival at the Sydney Opera House and their attendance of a performance.

Pierre Huyghe redefines the boundaries of contemporary art. As a traveler between the heterogenous zones of culture and its history, he is always searching for new formal languages. His work draws the viewer into a world in which fiction and reality are inseparable. This interview focuses on his understanding of the work as a point of origin for an aesthetic experience, which becomes a subject in its own right. This extensive conversation with Pierre Huyghe outlines a multifaceted picture of his thinking and his artistic practice by making reference to both his early and recent works. In the interview, the artist reports in detail about his longstanding preoccupation with the format of the exhibition – a journey that led to his investigation of living organisms, most recently in a garden that he realized under the title Untilled (2011-2012) at dOCUMENTA (13).

Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2019

It is known that Jørn Utzon (1918-2008), the principal architect for the Sydney Opera House project (1957-66), had a lifetime obsession for Chinese art and architecture. However, previous studies did not explore the relationship between Utzon and his venerated Chinese writer Lin Yutang (1895-1976). How Utzon represented the ideas and ideals he received from Lin Yutang's conceptualization of Chinese art and architecture in My Country and My People (1935) has not been systematically documented. To this end, this article examines the role of Lin Yutang's work in Utzon's architectural career generally and the architect's Sydney Opera House design in particular. It argues that My Country and My People nurtured young Utzon's own architectural philosophy, as reflected in his early manifestoes and design projects. Eventually, Lin Yutang's Chinese aesthetics encapsulated in calligraphy, painting and architecture helped Utzon to initiate, articulate and further communicate the design principles of his Sydney Opera House, as well as several other important architectural works before and after. Although Utzon never fully realized his Opera House due to forced resignation in 1966, the inspiration from Lin Yutang vividly remains in Utzon's yet to be finished masterpiece.

The story of the construction of the Sydney Opera House is well told though numerous scholarly outputs ranging from monographs about specific building elements to critiques of the architectural form and function. This article explores how the stories of those who inhabit the various spaces within the Sydney Opera House have become supplementary and are often overlooked in the narrative of what is Australia's most famous building. In particular, this article seeks to highlight some of the stories of this unique performing arts complex utilising the lens of those who ensure the building functions – administrators, technicians and tradespeople – in this way offering a biography of a building that does not adopt the traditional point of view of the architect, the performer and the politician. The biography thus explores the backstage stories of the Sydney Opera House rather than those stories that made front-page news.

2019

The Sydney Opera House is an internationally recognised icon of Sydney. As a piece of modernist architecture, performing arts centre and tourist destination, the structure on Bennelong Point is regularly examined and rarely left in the dark. This paper briefly examines two architects, from opposite sides of the globe, and an unusual pair of lighting designers from competing companies who all worked in partnership to realise a lighting design for this famous building. Together, these four men gave shape to a structure, redefined the night skyline, and provided an experience of the theatre that was uniquely Sydney. Through brief biographies of the well- known architects Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) and Peter Hall (1925–1995) as well as the lesser-known lighting designers Fred Drijver (n.d.–) and John Waldram (1903–1990), this research demonstrates how these professionals, from radically different backgrounds and cultural settings, delivered a cohesive and elegant design to illuminate the Sydney Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House is universally recognized as an architectural icon. Jørn Utzon's masterpiece of the built environment has captured the imagination of many; bridging the divide between 'elite' and 'popular' culture. This paper will briefly examine some of the re-imaginings of the physical structure that sits on Bennelong Point into other physical and virtual media. These re-imaginings range from the first intervention as the plans were translated into a 3D model via an orange peel to contemporary Lego sets where the physical building elements are reproduced as plastic blocks. This diversity from plans to plastic demonstrates the readiness with which this unique form is adopted. In addition, this paper will look at how the Sydney Opera House has infiltrated a wide range of popular culture formats from fiction to film and from paintings to photography as well as social media.

2018

Some of the earliest connections between the citizens of Sydney and their opera house were made through the flood of letters to the editors of Sydney’s daily newspapers in the days following the announcement of Jørn Utzon’s winning design for one of the most sought-after architectural prizes of the decade. This research unpacks the connections between people and newspapers and looks at how the unconventional modernist design proposed for Bennelong Point variously, set Sydney apart or made it the butt of jokes, promoted modernity or absurdity, represented a canny political move or presented as a foolhardy folly. These letters, by ordinary Australians to mass media publications, provide an early biography of the structure that is now a globally recognised symbol for Sydney.

Grey Room, 2019

2012

Over the past two decades, French artist Pierre Huyghe has produced an extraordinary body of work in constant dialogue with temporality. Investigating the possibility of a hypothetical mode of timekeeping - “parallel presents” - Huyghe has researched the architecture of the incomplete, directed a puppet opera, founded a temporary school, established a pirate television station, staged celebrations, scripted scenarios, and journeyed to Antarctica in search of a mythological penguin. In this first book-length art historical examination of Huyghe and his work, Amelia Barikin traces the artist’s continual negotiation with the time codes of contemporary society. Offering detailed analyses of Huyghe’s works and drawing on extensive interviews with Huyghe and his associates, Barikin finds in Huyghe’s projects an alternate way of thinking about history--a “topological historicity” that deprograms (or reprograms) temporal formats. Huyghe once said, “It is through the montage, the way we combine and relate images, that we can create a representation of an event that is perhaps more precise than the event itself.” Barikin offers pioneering analyses of Huyghe’s lesser-known early works as well as sustained readings of later, critically acclaimed projects, including No Ghost Just a Shell (2000), L’Expédition scintillante (2002), and A Journey That Wasn’t (2005). She emphasizes Huyghe’s concepts of “freed time” and “the open present,” in which anything might happen. Bringing together an eclectic array of subjects and characters - from moon walking to situationist practices, from Snow White to Gilles Deleuze - Parallel Presents offers a highly original account of the driving forces behind Huyghe’s work. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/parallel-presents