Sculpture by the Sea 2024: giant melanoma on Sydney beach to deliver ‘message that will be hard to ignore’
Sculpture has a knack of provoking debate.The medium’s ability to divide viewers on the aesthetics of a work – and often its cost to the public purse – can make sculpture a polarising subject.But it’s rare for a work to claim it may save lives.Working in the field of advertising, Sydney creative Andrew Hankin is not above hyperbole.But his team’s entry into this year’s Sculpture by the Sea could very well save a life or lives, as visitors to Tamarama gaze down in horror/awe/morbid fascination at a gargantuan sculpture resembling a melanoma.
Creator of the enormous We’re Fryin’ Out Here’ frying pan for the 2014 Sculpture by the Sea, Hankin is reprising his skin cancer awareness-through-art project with an inflatable sculpture constructed from heavy-duty fabric.Titled Melanoma, the work will almost imperceptibly change in size, shape and colour as the outdoor exhibition progresses.It may be less lighthearted that his previous work, Hankin acknowledges, but a decade on he felt a more “cutting approach” was needed.“It’s a really big issue, and I think in the sense of bigness, we wanted to go out there and create something that hadn’t been done before in terms of scale,” he says.“It’s going to have a message that will be hard to ignore this summer.
”Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailJust how the three-metre-high by 20-metre-wide melanoma will change colour, as well as its shape and size, will remain an artist’s secret.“We almost want people to not recognise that it’s changed at first,” he says.“We want people to feel like, ‘Oh wow, that changed in front of my eyes, and I didn’t really realise it’ … because that almost feels like how you would recognise a melanoma on your own skin.”The creative team of Hankin, Andy Cooke and Matthew Aberline will be joined by Scott Maggs, who founded Skin Check Champions following the death of his closest friend from skin cancer at the age of 26.According to Cancer Council NSW, two out of three Australians will be diagnosed with some type of skin cancer during their lifetime, and Australia is one of the world leaders in skin cancer research and treatment.
Early detection of melanomas is critical, Maggs says,“Over 60% of skin cancers are actually identified by the people who had them on their skin,It’s something really important for every Australian to learn, to look out for changes and things that are new,”Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotionSkin Check Champions provides free early detection services, including to regional and remote communities, and educates people with the “A, B, C, D, E” mantra – A for asymmetry, B for border, C for colour, D for diameter and E for evolution,On the weekend of 26 and 27 October the organisation will be conducting free skin checks for people coming to view the melanoma sculpture on the Tamarama sand.
When the exhibition concludes on 4 November, Skin Check Champions will take up a 10-day residency at the Bondi Surf Bathers’ life saving club, where it hopes to screen about 2,000 people.The Sculpture by the Sea venture is the second artistic collaboration the not-for-profit is entering into, having partnered with Spencer Tunick for the 2022 Bondi beach work where 2,500 people stripped off not just in the name of art, but also to draw awareness to skin cancer.The costs of both creating the sculpture and staging the mass skin check events are being jointly funded by sunscreen manufacturer La Roche-Posay and pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb.Now in its 26th year, the world’s largest free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition opens on 18 October.The 2km coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Tamarama is expected to host almost half a million visitors during the 18-day event.
This year will feature the work of a dozen Japanese sculptors, including Haruyuki Uchida, Keizo Ushio and Toshio Iezumi, artists from across Europe and Asia and works by four Australian artists – James Rogers, John Petrie, Stephen King and Paul Bacon – who exhibited in the first Sculpture by the Sea in 1997.
UK’s Alan Turing Institute launches redundancy consultation process
The UK’s national institute for artificial intelligence and data science has launched a consultation process that could lead to redundancies among its 440 staff.In a memo sent to staff this month the Alan Turing Institute gave an update on its new strategy, under which it will concentrate on fewer projects.It was addressed to “affected employees” and stated that the government-backed institute “may need to consider making redundancies”. According to informal calculations by staff, the memo could have been sent to as many as 140 people.The internal document said the institute – which carries out research with universities, the private sector and government entities – was working on 111 live projects and needed to “move away from engaging in large numbers of individual projects”
iPhone 16 review: more buttons and speed for Apple’s standard phone
Apple’s latest iPhone bucks the trend of buttons vanishing from phones, gaining not one but two new controls on the outside, plus a big jump in chip performance and two-day battery life on the inside.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The standard iPhone 16 is Apple’s smallest and lowest-priced handset in the new 16 series, costing from £799 (€959/$799/A$1,399) sitting below the bigger and more expensive 16 Plus and 16 Pro models
‘It’s not me, it’s just my face’: the models who found their likenesses had been used in AI propaganda
The well-groomed young man dressed in a crisp, blue shirt speaking with a soft American accent seems an unlikely supporter of the junta leader of the west African state of Burkina Faso.“We must support … President Ibrahim Traoré … Homeland or death we shall overcome!” he says in a video that began circulating in early 2023 on Telegram. It was just a few months after the dictator had come to power via a military coup.Other videos fronted by different people, with a similar professional-looking appearance and repeating the exact same script in front of the Burkina Faso flag, cropped up around the same time.On a verified account on X a few days later the same young man, in the same blue shirt, claimed to be Archie, the chief executive of a new cryptocurrency platform
Google to buy nuclear power for AI datacentres in ‘world first’ deal
Google has signed a “world first” deal to buy energy from a fleet of mini nuclear reactors to generate the power needed for the rise in use of artificial intelligence.The US tech corporation has ordered six or seven small nuclear reactors (SMRs) from California’s Kairos Power, with the first due to be completed by 2030 and the remainder by 2035.Google hopes the deal will provide a low-carbon solution to power datacentres, which require huge volumes of electricity. The company, owned by Alphabet, said nuclear provided “a clean, round-the-clock power source that can help us reliably meet electricity demands”.The explosive growth of generative AI, as well as cloud storage, has increased tech companies’ electricity demands
TechScape: Elon Musk is stumping hard for Donald Trump
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, technology news editor at the Guardian US. Thank you for joining me.Average daily notifications: 270Apps with the most total notifications: – Messages: 391 – New York Post: 190 – Slack: 121Elon Musk is stumping hard for Donald Trump.The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has funded a pro-Trump political action committee with tens of millions of dollars and planned a packed campaign schedule to boost the former president in Pennsylvania
Oura Ring 4 review: best smart ring gets comfort and battery upgrade
Oura’s stylish smart ring worn by celebrities and athletes alike has slimmed down for its fourth iteration, making it easier to put on, more comfortable to wear and last longer between charges.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The Ring 4 swaps the clear plastic insides of its predecessor for shiny titanium to look even less like a cutting-edge piece of tech on your finger
Tory MP says Badenoch too ‘preoccupied with her children’ to lead party
Akshata Murty could receive up to £7.5m after Infosys increases dividend
Farage given free team of US PR advisers by former Bannon aide’s firm
Sir Tom Hunter confirms he paid for Alex Salmond’s body to be flown home
Half of Tory councillors do not believe Jenrick or Badenoch can win next election
Bridget Phillipson unaware of any cabinet minister who declined free Taylor Swift tickets