SENSING SYDNEY: PROPOSAL FOR
PUBLIC ART COMMISSION
PROPOSAL NUMBER: XXXXXX
The Council of the City of Sydney
Town Hall House
456 Kent Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000
www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Carbon Arts
136a Cromwell St
Collingwood, VIC 3066
www.carbonarts.org
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW
1. Introduction
The City of Sydney and Carbon Arts are inviting proposals from artists and creative teams for
a temporary public artwork that engages with data on Sydney’s progress towards
Sustainable Sydney 2030.
This public art commission is a component of ‘Sensing Sydney’, a City of Sydney and Carbon
Arts project that aims to create pathways for creative use of data and technology to engage
the public in an active 'open data dialogue' on environmental issues. The commission will be
showcased as part of Art & About Sydney 2013.
As part of this project, the City of Sydney is committed to make a range of data on its own
environmental performance as well as data that it gathers about the City’s progress to
sustainability goals as a whole, publically available online through Cosm.com1. While this
platform is being set up, the City has prepared a spreadsheet of this data so that artists may
have access it to use and inspire proposals. This includes data from some third party
providers.
The spreadsheet is available for download on the Carbon Arts website:
http://www.carbonarts.org/projects/sensing-sydney-public-art-commission. Artists are
encouraged to incorporate the data or information provided in the spreadsheet in their
proposals, however, additional or alternative sources of data may also be proposed. See the
Project Brief section below for more guidance on the approach to data.
2. Carbon Arts
Carbon Arts generates and evaluates creative models for engaging society in imagining and
shaping a more sustainable future.
Straddling the arts, economics, science, and technology, our projects foster innovation and
dialogue between disciplines and the public as a to address contemporary environmental
challenges. We do this through targeted and means timely public art commissions, events,
workshops, exhibitions and research.
We work with forward-thinking governments, businesses, artists and designers to inject
creative talent and thinking into decision-making and to reach broad audiences.
3. Art & About Sydney 2013 – Art in unusual places
Art & About Sydney is a collaborative arts festival seeing both artists and the general public
evoking infinite possibilities in the City environment where every street, laneway, building
site, intersection and thoroughfare is considered a canvas for creation and storytelling.
1
Cosm (formerly Pachube ) is an on-line database service allowing developers to connect sensorderived data (e.g. energy and environment data from objects, devices & buildings) to the Web and to
build their own applications based on that data. Cosm manages millions of data points per day from
thousands of individuals, organisations & companies around the world. Data can be pushed from the
sensor end, or pulled by the Cosm servers every 15 minutes, with the data feeds then made available in
multiple formats at no charge. Cosm is built to encourage open digital ecosystems, for example
electricity meters, weather stations, building management systems, air quality stations, biosensors and
Geiger counters.
Art & About Sydney plays an integral role in bringing the Sustainable Sydney plan to life. The
festival invites discussion and empowers our audience to contribute to this public event that
puts art and performance of all disciplines in unusual spaces. The festival has an 11 year
history of bringing artists with local, national and international profiles to present work in
public spaces.
Art & About Sydney 2013 will run from 20 September – 20 October 2013. Further
information on Art & About Sydney and a copy of the 2012 program is available at
www.artandabout.com.au
PROJECT BRIEF
1. Budget
The City of Sydney and Carbon Arts is seeking proposals from artists, curators, architects,
collectives and arts organisations for a project valued up to $25,000.
Budgets for the installation/project are to cover all costs for the presentation of the artwork,
including but not limited to artist’s fees, production/producer fees, materials, security,
lighting, insurances, engineering and structural documents and certification, production,
transport, installation and dismantle costs. As the budget must cover all costs including
security, the artist/organisation may consider a project with minimal security requirements.
2. Project Exhibition Dates
20 September – 20 October 2013.
3. Criteria
The project should:
1. Demonstrate artistic excellence
2. Demonstrate an innovative approach
3. Be presented in a public space or unusual location within the City of Sydney’s Local
Government Area
4. Be highly accessible and appeal to a broad audience
5. Involve or engage audiences in its development /presentation (or both)
6. Employ data that speaks to the City’s journey towards Sustainable Sydney 2030 goals (see
Data Brief below)
4. Data Brief
We are looking for proposals that engage a number of actors within the City of Sydney
around a particular sustainability goal or challenge. The spreadsheet that accompanies these
materials provides both City of Sydney Council collected data as well as data from third
parties.
Artists may want to consider triangulating data sources around their projects such that all
three of the following inform the work:
1. City of Sydney sustainability data (both relating to Council’s own environmental
performance as well as data gathered to report on progress of the City as a
whole towards Sustainable2030 goals).
2. Third party data, e.g. that relates to a particular site (which might also inform
the location of the work, such as a particular building, business, neighbourhood,
etc).
3. Citizen generated data, such as data collected during the exhibition period of the
work or prior to the work’s exhibition.
See the cover page of the City of Sydney sustainability data spreadsheet for further guidance
on available data.
INVITATION SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Applicants should complete all of the following forms within this document and include the
following material in their submission.
1. Registration of Interest Form
2. Artwork statement (250 – 500 words) describing the project
3. Project methodology (250 – 500 words) and indication of preferred
locations for the work
4. Artists impression of proposed installation/project
5. A draft budget for project/installation execution
6. Artist/team CVs
7. Additional reference information (optional)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
EVALUATION CRITERIA
Project Proposals shall be evaluated according to but not limited to the following criteria:
1. Innovation and creative approach
2. Use of public/unusual space
3. Public engagement
4. Project methodology
5. Use of sustainability data
Please see below for timeline of project evaluations and further terms and conditions
TIMELINES AND TERMS & CONDITIONS
PRELIMINARY PROJECT TIMELINE
Invitation for submission of proposals open
Deadline for submissions
Assessment of submissions
Successful artist notified & contracting commences
Artwork for Art & About printed program
required from successful artist
Monday 22 April 2013
Monday 20 May 2013
22-30 May 2013
3 June 2013
Artwork development and construction
2013
Art & About Sydney 2013 Launch
4 June– 19 September
5 June 2013
20 September 2013
GENERAL TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT & RELATIONSHIP WITH CARBON ARTS AND CITY OF
SYDNEY
1. Acceptance of projects may be subject to an interview process, following which the
selection panel reserves the right to accept projects in part or in full.
2. Projects supported through this proposal process will have a primary focus on
presentation as part of Art & About Sydney 2013. The City of Sydney reserves the right to
consider proposals for its 2014 Art & About Sydney program subject to both parties reaching
an agreement.
3. Any other engagements and presenting partnerships should be disclosed.
4. A draft copy of artwork agreements will be provided for your consideration at the time of
selection.
5. Where other funding partners are required, these should be disclosed to avoid conflict of
interest and benefits provided.
6. Council produced marketing and promotional materials will only acknowledge
government funding partners.
7. Respondents are invited to submit more than one proposal, however, it should be noted
that where artists are credited as working on several Art & About Sydney projects Council
may request they be replaced to avoid conflict of interest, and ensure commitments are
achievable
SECTION 3: KEY CONDITIONS OF PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
Name of Proposal
Sensing Sydney: public art commission
Proposal Number
XXX
Closing Date
Monday 20 May
Closing Time
12pm
Lodging a submission
All proposals should be submitted by email, including FTP site download
links for large media files, to:
Josh Wodak
Production Manager
Carbon Arts
Email: josh@carbonarts.org
Respondents will receive a successful submission request that is timed
and dated upon completion.
Proposal Documents
The documents that comprise this Proposal include:
Proposal Conditions & Forms
STANDARD CONDITIONS OF PROPOSAL SUBMISSION PROCESS
1.
SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
By submitting a proposal, the respondent acknowledges that:
Carbon Arts and the Selection Panel at its absolute discretion reserves the right to
accept or reject any proposal and to decide the tender list regardless of any proposal
and to issue or not issue a request for tender.
Any costs incurred by respondents in any way associated with the preparation and
submission of this proposal, will be entirely borne by the respondent.
No legal or other obligations will arise between a respondent and Carbon Arts, unless or
until formal documentation has been signed.
2.
LODGEMENT OF PROPOSALS
Proposals should be lodged by email to josh@carbonarts.org with the pdf of your application
form, artist’s impression of the proposed work and any other supporting files attached to
the email as a folder titled SURNAME_FirstName_SensingSydney.zip, by 12pm Monday 20
May. If your application includes large image/media files, these should be included as FTP
site download links (through programs such as Dropbox or YouSendIt).
Any proposals received by Carbon Arts after the closing date will not be considered by the
Selection Panel.
3.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
Proposals will be examined and evaluated according to the following criteria:
1. Innovation and creative approach
2. Use of public/unusual space
3. Public engagement
4. Project methodology
5. Use of data
Each of the mandatory evaluation criteria listed above is considered to be critical to this
proposal. They are not of equal weight for evaluation and are not listed in order of priority.
Bidders compliance on each of the mandatory evaluation criteria will be separately
evaluated using the Evaluation Rating Scale below:
Score rating
Description
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
Absolutely risk free
Statistically risk free
Minimal risk but acceptable
Minor risk but acceptable
Some risk but acceptable
Risky and barely acceptable
Risky and unacceptable
If a bidder receives a score of less than 40 in any one mandatory assessment criteria, that
bidder will be deemed non-compliant and will not be recommended for acceptance by
Carbon Arts or the Selection Panel.
Bidders must complete all parts of the Proposal Submission forms. Carbon Arts and the
Selection Panel may reject any proposal which does not provide all the required information.
4.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Bidders must disclose any conflict of interest in undertaking the requirements of the
specifications and contract. Where a Bidder has a conflict of interest, the Bidder must
provide Carbon Arts in writing with detailed information about the nature and scope of the
conflict of interest and include details of any arrangements proposed to resolve or manage
the conflict of interest should the Bidder be awarded the contract. Based on the
information provided by the Bidder, Carbon Arts and the Selection Panel will make the final
decision regarding the Bidder’s conflict of interest. If a conflict of interest is not disclosed by
a Bidder and Council or Carbon Arts then becomes aware of the conflict, Bidders may be
excluded from this proposal process.
5.
BUSINESS WITH BURMA
The City has a specific requirement that Council will not, in certain circumstances, purchase
goods or services provided by those who, Council is aware, conduct business in, or with,
Burma, or who are willing to do so, until democracy has been restored and human rights
violations have ceased.
If a bidder is aware that any goods or services provided as part of their bid are subject to the
abovementioned clause, these goods or services should be highlighted within their bid and
provide the reasons for their inclusion.
PART 1
PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
I/We having read, understood and fully informed myself/ourselves of the contents,
requirements and obligations of the proposal process, submit this proposal for the
performance by myself/ourselves of …………………………………………………… [insert details of the
project] for Carbon Arts.
Name of Respondent
Subsidiary Company (if applicable)
Address of Respondent
Postal Address
Refer enquiries to: (name, telephone number and e-mail address)
Phone Number
Email
Legal Entity (if applicable)
ABN
Signature and Date
Official Position Held
PART 2
Artwork statement
The following form must be completed as part of this proposal:
A written statement of 250 – 500 words outlining project/work/installation
PART 3
Project Methodology
The following form must be completed as part of this proposal:
A written outline of 250 – 500 words outlining project methodology and indication of
preferred locations. Please address the following in your brief:

Suggested locations for the project should be within the public domain of the City of
Sydney Local Government Area. (If applicable, please describe how the location
choice relates to the data and subject area selected.)

Identify which one of Sydney’s Sustainable 2030 goals your work addresses.

Clearly identify which data sources you will be using or seeking, and whether any
additional assistance will be required to make data available.

Address your approach to sustainability in the production of the work itself,
including your selection of materials, use of energy, water and waste.
PART 4
Artists Impression
The following form must be completed as part of this proposal:
Please attach an artist’s impression of the proposed work.
If your application includes large image/media files, these should be included as FTP site
download links (through programs such as Dropbox or YouSendIt).
PART 5
BUDGET
The following form must be completed as part of this proposal:
A proposed budget for project execution, noting all income and expenditure including other
income if confirmed.
The budget should also include a 10 % contingency.
PART 6
ARTIST/TEAM CV’S
The following form must be completed as part of this proposal:
A list of names or project team details proposed to develop the project. Please include brief
bios or CVs.
PART 7 (Optional)
Additional reference information (optional)
The following form is an optional part of this proposal:
Respondents can supply any additional supporting information or reference materials up to
2 A4 pages and/or 2 media files. If it is written material, we prefer you embed the file in this
section. If it is a media file, we prefer you provide link(s) for downloading from this section
also.