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 #4 Linnaeus, Cullen proposed installing two r/p/m artworks, titled Table A and Table B (both unrealised), in the Linnaeus Garden in Uppsala, Sweden. Propositions #1, #2, #3, and #5 locate artworks at the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, the Netherlands; the Octagon Room in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England; Musick Memorial Radio Station on Naupata Reserve, Aotearoa; 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."

"Carl Linnaeus [1707–1778] was responsible for this garden during his tenure at Uppsala University. Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician who laid the foundations for binomial nomenclature used in the classification of living things. Within the Linnaeus garden is a pool which will be integral to this project."

"Linnaeus is a development of the water circulation component of Recent Discoveries [1993] in which water was pumped from a waterproofed cardboard box to a fountain in the gallery courtyard. Water from the fountain flowed into a glass tank returning to the box inside the gallery via a second hose." 

"The Linnaeus project will locate a submersible water pump in the garden pool which will pump water to a container inside the Linnaeus Museum. Water from the museum container will return to the pool via a hose and table mounted fountain. Hoses, tanks and tables employed in the project will carry graduated markings while rulers (metric) will be deployed in the propping and support of hoses where this is required."

—Paul Cullen, 2011