This interactive, virtual project realises a speculative proposal made by artist Paul Cullen in 2011 to install works from his r/p/m (revolutions per minute) series around the globe at historical centres for scientific study (sites that the artist had visited and researched). For Proposition #1: Planetarium, Cullen proposed situating r/p/m artworks, including Lost (2007), Fox Circle (2007), r/p/m [3] (2010) and Geographer [1] and [2] (1995), in Musick Point Memorial Radio Station on Naupata Reserve / Musick Point, Aotearoa. Propositions #2, #3, #4, and #5 locate artworks at the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, the Netherlands; the Octagon Room in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England; Linnaeus Garden in Uppsala, Sweden; and the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. The Paul Cullen Archive will realise propositions 1–4 as virtual installations between December 2022 and March 2023.

Cullen initially presented these hypothetical site-related r/p/m installations as a series of five interchangeable gatefold covers wrapping the publication Paul Cullen: r/p/m, published by split/fountain in 2011. This publication includes documentation of Cullen's r/p/m series installed in the artist's Panmure studio in Tāmaki Makaurau. Describing the works, he notes that: "each sculpture proposes, though fails to perform, some kind of rational purposes such as demonstration, observation or measurement."

In Propositions #3, Cullen acknowledges Ngai Tai Ki Tamaki as the original inhabitants of Naupata Reserve / Musick Point. Paul Cullen Archive further acknowledges the harmful acts, omissions and historical breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi by settler-colonists at Te Naupata / Musick Point.

For Digital r/p/m, the Paul Cullen Archive has drawn on the instructional notes and diagrams provided by the artist on the r/p/m publication covers. Proposition #3: Musick includes a written concept, site images and selected r/p/m sculptures. However, unlike propositions #1 and #2, he does not include an annotated floor plan indicating the placement of works. The artist's concept reads: 

"For Musick, six r/p/m sculptures would be installed amongst existing equipment in rooms of the Radio Communications building. These r/p/m sculptures would be; Science (Table), Geographer [1], Geographer [2], Fox Circle, Lost, and r/p/m [3]."

"The Musick Point Radio Communications building houses equipment once employed in monitoring the communications and movements of aircraft and shipping in the Waitemata Harbour and Hauraki Gulf area. Much of this equipment dates back to the middle of last century and, although mostly still functional, is now obsolete." 

"Musick Point is the headland of a peninsula that forms the eastern shore of the Tamaki River at Bucklands Beach, a suburb of East Auckland. The headland is also known as Te Waiarohia, after an ancient Maori stronghold of the Ngai Tai Iwi tribe."

"Musick Point Memorial Radio Station, Naupata Reserve / Musick Point coordinates: 36º 50’ 00”S, 174º 54’ 00” E"

—Paul Cullen, 2011 

Using LiDAR and photogrammetry, the archive has created 3D models of artworks in Cullen's former studio and collaborated with offshore creatives to realise scans of international locations. These elements congregate in the open-source platform Mozilla Hubs (scroll down for the Mozilla Hubs room link). The r/p/m virtual installations explore how notions of space are simultaneously anchored within a given moment while also interlaced with historical traces left behind. 

Unfortunately, Mozilla Hubs was shut down on May 31, 2024, so the four virtual installations can no longer be viewed.

Musick Point Memorial Radio Station, 2022
Images by Paul Cullen Archive

Proposed artworks to be situated in the Musick Point Memorial Radio Station: K, I, Q, D, E, B

Models of artworks situated in Musick Memorial Radio Station

Click the links below to view, rotate and scale individual models.

Credits and Acknowledgements 

Digital r/p/m is part of Huarere: Weather Eye, Weather Ear, Te Tuhi (Pakuranga, Tāmaki Makaurau), curated by Janine Randerson, as a contribution to the World Weather Network, 2022–2023.

Digital r/p/m concept
Paul Cullen Archive

Contributors
Artwork models and Musick model by Paul Cullen Archive (Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa / New Zealand)
Artwork animation by Felipe Pulfer (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

r/p/m publication covers (2011)
Publication concept by Paul Cullen, Jayme Yen and Layla Tweedie-Cullen
Artwork by Paul Cullen
Design by Jayme Yen and Layla Tweedie-Cullen

Thanks to 
Martyn, Dave and David from the Musick Point Radio Group
Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey
Janine Randerson
p. mule, et al.

Produced with support from Creative New Zealand

Other r/p/m propositions