AUNZ Work of the Week: Enigma and MobileMuster

Enigma tasked artist James Dive – founder and creative director of Studio Dive – with creating theatrical, mechanical public artworks that fit within the confines of a bus shelter, and come to life with the push of a button.

The three resulting installations across Sydney – a washing machine near a laundromat, a dancing boot near nightclubs, and an underwater scene featuring device-eating clams by the beach – are mechanically impressive, and visually beautiful. And they each tell a story of common ways phones are destroyed in order to encourage the recycling of old devices.

Because each installation had to fit within the confines of a standard bus shelter panel, the washing machine is only 10 centimetres wide, and can be seen from both sides of the bus shelter.

In a world flooded with dull, these are the antithesis. They’re art, and give people a reason to take in, and interact with them, while waiting for the bus. I only wish I’d stumbled upon one in the wild, unknowing, and pressed the button to see the whole scene whir into life.

In a piece of near-instant feedback for the dancing boot, Enigma CCO Simon Lee told LBB, “We were walking away and we saw a bunch of teenagers – who didn't know that we were the installers – flock towards the bus shelter.

“One of our team sidled along subtly behind them, and the teenagers pressed the button and watched the boot start to do its thing. One of them was heard to say, ‘This is actually cool.’”

The teenagers are right.