Sticklers with sticky tape lay it on the line at World Science Festival

Art meets science as Brisbane-based artist Briony Barr joins forces with physicist Professor Andrew Melatos in an innovative collaboration when the World Science Festival returns.

Drawing on Complexity: Experiment 9 will invite people to arm themselves with seven metres of colourful tape to stick on 3D surfaces with other people simultaneously.

Drawing on Complexity: Experiment 9 is an immersive installation where artist Briony Barr invites people to take part with coloured tape.

“It’s like a big board game meets a science experiment,” Barr said.

“I’ve always been interested in what emerges in a collaborative drawing process.

“It’s a long-term art investigation combining the collaboration of drawing and thinking of complex systems and simple rules and people following simple rules over time.”

All participants would learn a simple algorithm before contributing and the work would change over time as more people became involved.

Artist Briony Barr has been fascinated by the results of the experiment every time.

Barr said each time she did the experiment she would change the rules, and it was always surprising how different interactions occurred during the project.

“You try to think through the rules and plan, but you can never predict what people are going to do,” she said.

“I’ve learnt some people are very co-operative and think of the drawing as a whole and want to collaborate to make the drawing look beautiful and some people are very competitive and their personalities really come out.

“You find out who has a drive for competition, who is a stickler for the rules and who is always looking for loopholes.

“That’s not something I originally planned but it’s evolved throughout the process.

“It’s inspiring to work with science. I think it’s an experiment of what happens when you bring different ideas and combine knowledge systems together.”

Other attractions in the festival’s Art/Science program include German Polish artist Karina Smigla-Bobinski, who will bring her three-metre interactive sculpture ADA to Australia, and First Nations artists from Pormpuraaw Art and Culture Centre showcasing large-scale installations of Ghost Net sculptures.

The World Science Festival runs March 22-26 at the Queensland Museum. For more information, visit the link here.