Musical chairs in Feq Square bring booms of Metro Tunnel to the surface

Key points

• Hexadeca is a music making playground art installation made up of 16 spinning seats in Federation Square as part of Melbourne’s Fringe Festival. 
• Each spinning seat plays a distinctive part of the musical score such as drums, guitar or construction noises and all seats need to be filled and spinning for the music to be played in its entirety.
• The musical score includes sounds recorded in Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel project which runs under Federation Square. 

A new art installation has brought the little-heard sounds of Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel construction to the surface.

Hexadeca, at Federation Square, features 16 spinning seats that light up and play music featuring the noises of pumps, drills and massive tunnel-boring machines from the mammoth project underneath the city’s streets.

Grace Spencer spinning (with a little help from Daniel Meyer) on the Hexadeca installation at Fed Square.Credit:Scott McNaughton

Each evening, Hexadeca turns Fed Square into a sound and light experience. The seats light up and play music when people sit in them and spin.

Hexedeca’s creators, Joren Dawson and Jascha Boyce from Adelaide-based creative studio Pulsing Heart, describe the project as a “music-making playground art installation”.

“It brings people together through play and common experience and being able to make music,” Dawson said. “There is no greater meaning besides an experience that is for everyone.”

Dawson said the installation, which is part of Melbourne’s Fringe Festival, encourages participation because it doesn’t function unless people interact with it. “The whole thing sparks some joy.”

What lies beneath: a view from the Metro Tunnel construction.Credit:Joe Armao

Dawson and Boyce’s aim is to engage commuters and curious passers-by.

“We really see these big art projects as being great for public life and spaces and making peoples’ days better,” Dawson said. “We get people involved who are not everyday art connoisseurs.”

The musical score gives participants a sense of what lies below Federation Square.

“I had no idea what a tunnel sound would be like,” Dawson said. “It is a little ominous – it has big dark stretched-out synth sounds tinkered in with noises that might be ‘construction-esque’, like bangs and echoes.”

Metro Tunnel project director Linda Cantan said the installation would help keep the areas around the tunnel’s construction sites vibrant and interesting while building was underway.

“A huge range of sounds are part of everyday life for the hundreds of people working on the Metro Tunnel project, from pumps and drills to excavators and massive tunnel-boring machines,” she said. “It’s great to be able to share a small part of life on a Metro Tunnel with the community in a way that’s fun and interactive.”

Katrina Sedgwick, chief executive of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation, said the installation celebrated Federation Square turning 20 and the Melbourne Fringe Festival turning 40.

“This immersive installation invites people of all ages from across our community to literally play together, creating a sound and lightscape collaboratively and joyfully,” she said. “I can’t think of a better place for it to be than in the middle of our square in the heart of Melbourne.”

Hexadeca is a free installation at Federation Square from noon to 9pm each day until October 23. The Age is a Fringe Festival partner.

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