Projecting Canberra: centenary disPleasure

Canberra, seat of Australia’s national government, is celebrating its hundredth birthday in 2013. This occasion is all the more notable for the rarity of cities around the world that can pinpoint an actual moment of birth in the way that Canberra can as a city that was conceptualized, then founded and named on a particular date. The centenary birthday is being celebrated with a year-­‐long series of festivities, not the least of which is the spectacle of Enlighten Canberra, continuation of an annual city festival of light built around Canberra Day in March. This festival features large-­‐scale architectural projections onto iconic national buildings in the parliamentary triangle on the south side of Lake Burley-­‐Griffin. Each year, a different selection of local artists are given the opportunity to collaborate with one of Australia’s pre-­‐eminent large-­‐scale projection design teams, The Electric Canvas. Reflections on these collaborations and the way in which they are inexorably drawn into the politics of art as spectacle is the focus of this paper and photographic essay.