PROMETHEUS ONE

2018

An honours project

Prometheus One is a World Archive of Sound and Language center taking place 200 years in the future.

Serving as a speculative projection of today’s political and social climate, where the Linguistic Imperialism of Western societies erases individual and cultural identity, Prometheus One serves as the first haven for self-realisation by promoting language education.

Landmarks

THE STORY

BEGINS

After the long journey, you have finally reached Prometheus One.

The port hovered above the skeleton wharf, a remnant from the past. We could hear and feel the island –

the waves reverberating the platform and echoing through the monolithic columns...

muzzling the noise of the distant city.

We must learn more about our own identities. We are tired of our given image.

We deeply inhaled the smell of fresh rain as the storm permeated the void, relieving any claustrophobia from the levels above.

As we walked towards into the Sound Archive, indistinguishable sounds and voices began to intermingle with the rain.

Yet with each step past the concrete door, coir lined-walls silenced harmonies from the archive.

So silent that all we could hear were the soft whispers of the wind.

The Apple is a restaurant that fractured the existing walls of the harbourmaster with nutrient pipes, looping and penetrating sporadically from the central brew.

The interiors are dark, foggy with inhabitable nooks, and gutters spit juice from the walls ready for collection, creating an atmosphere that is sinful to consume.

Guided by the lights, we flocked towards the forum space and witnessed the captured beast - the Queen’s Magazine.

We watched her decay, erode away as we develop our own identities.

At long last we’ve reached the crane foreshadowed from the very beginning of our journey.

Let’s go home.

RESEARCH

Less than 4% of Australians are First Nation people and more than 90% of Australia’s indigenous languages are critically endangered.

The Gadigal tribe who inhabited the lands of Goat Island - the site Prometheus resides, depend on their language to pass down culture, traditions and spiritual beliefs. The british colonisers not only eradicated their populace and forcefully assimilated their children, but also imposed English as the only acceptable language. The cultural and dwelling loss still prevalently affects the surviving First Nations people today.

As a consequence of this, the project transforms into a World Archive of Sonic and Linguistic Centre and aims to collect, disperse and educate long forgotten sounds for future generations to discover.

DEVELOPING SOUND ARCHIVE