WIRED: Wire Integrated Research Education Development

The WIRED Lab was established in 2007 to ensure the legacy of The Wires, a unique and distinctly Australian invention that primarily exists in rural landscapes. Established to be a permanent Australian cultural facility The WIRED Lab’s long terms plans are to be a source of investigation and enjoyment for generations of artists, scientists and audiences.

This rurally located site facilitates artist residencies, workshops, socially networked audio visual websites and performances. These initiatives will reflect and enhance the interdisciplinary capacities of The Wires and The WIRED Lab, whilst providing multiple open forums for a senior artist and his associates to pass on skills and knowledge to the general community and other Australian artists and scientists.

The WIRED Lab is a unique regionally based project consolidating and expanding upon 30 years of research by Dr Alan Lamb into The Wires, an instrument consisting of strained spans of fencing wire that stretch across open landscape. Lamb is an artist, retired biomedical research scientist and GP, since the 70’s he has developed a unique methodology of recording the wires, these recordings acquired critical acclaim and have since been cited in many music text books.

The Wires have foundations in sculpture, land art and sound composition. Lamb is in his 60’s and wants to share as much information about the wires as possible. His long-term engagement with The Wires has expanded into areas relative to and beyond their sonic foundations.

In 2007/08 The WIRED Lab received an inaugural ‘ArtsLab’ infrastructure funds from Ozco InterArts Office and Arts NSW to install the Lab on Last’s family farm in regional NSW. These funds assisted in facilitating three residency periods and building two twin-span sets of wires spanning 350m and 200m to give a total of 1.1kms of wire. The residencies also included three community performances and workshops around the Riverina the region. These workshops utilized the residency artists specialized skills whilst providing opportunity for various communities to acquire skills and engage with the wires.

A key aspect of The WIRED Lab in 2007/08 was to expand The Wires through digital means and create an open ended technology to use the wire itself as a control/data source in future experiments. Lamb’s wire generates audible, subsonic and supersonic frequencies, with dynamic range extending from the lightness of a walking fly through to extremely loud sounds. The technology used to convert the wire into a control source will thus have wider implications and be generally applicable to other artistic/scientific fields; such as controlling other instruments, providing empirical data for scientific modeling of the wire and contributing to Lamb’s methodology for recording techniques.

PROJECT AIMS & OBJECTIVES
- Contribute to ensuring the longevity of The WIRED Lab and the legacy of Alan Lamb’s work.

- Create opportunities and develop skills for artists and regional communities.

- Provide multidisciplinary avenues for people to realise their innate creative potential.

- Produce lasting material resources that will enable people to learn how to build and have access to a unique Australian instrument.

- Expose new perspectives of our environment and the natural world.

- To exemplify the possibilities of facilitating quality CCD and arts/science research projects from a regional context.

THE ORGANISATION

The WIRED Lab commenced activities in 2007, and we were formally established as a not for profit company limited by guarantee in May 2009. We are governed by a board of four directors, Alan Lamb, Sarah Last, David Burraston and Robin Fox,  who each have experience with arts administration and not-for-profit artist run initiatives. The Directors of Wired Lab have the collaborative skills, industry networks, research practice and capacity to further develop aspects of the wires and continue their legacy.

The Wired Lab directors built wire installations as part of the inaugural phase of the project and are committed to ensuring the longevity of the project and Lamb’s legacy. The Wired Lab also reports to a six member Community Consultation Committee who represent various community, educational and arts organizations in the Riverina district, The Consultation Committee assist with our community cultural development programs and special one off collaborative projects.