The publicly marking time is a basic function of a city because a city need a sense of time to function. Bells can also sound alarms, announce events or play music. Bells can be famous or in themselves works of art. Art bells in Melbourne are often the work of Anton Hasell.
The Federation Bells at Birrung Mar are a combination of sculptural and musical objects. There is this whole area of musical sculpture but then every musical instrument is a kind of sculptural design. Designed by Neil McLachlan and Anton Hasell in collaboration with Swaney Draper Architects. The bells were commissioned in 1998 and installed in 2002. In 2005 the poles underwent a structural upgrade and in 2012 Federation Bells were removed and refurbished; public art requires regular maintenance.
The computer controlled 39 upturned bells can be programmed. Hasell wants the public to interact with his sculptures; he wants more people to compose music for the “Federation Bells.” However, it is not that simple because you have to compose in the just intonation that the bells are tuned to rather than the tempered scale.
Hasell moved from convention sculpture making to bell making as sculpture; after all they both involve casting. (For more on casting bells The Great Wren posted on his blog about the Whitechapel Bell Foundry one of the oldest businesses in London.) I look at one his earlier public sculpture of his in Richmond in my post – WTF corner.
An early bell work of Hasell is the Tilly Aston Bell, 1999 is a bronze sculpture that incorporates three connecting bells. It stands in the middle of a path in Kings Domain near the sunken garden to the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden. It commemorates the centenary of the Vision Australia Foundation, formerly known as the Association for the Blind, and the life and achievements of its founder, Tilly Aston.
Tilly Aston was the first blind person in Australia to attend university, but her education was cut short by an absence of textbooks in Braille. So in 1894 she established a Braille library. She was responsible for gaining for the blind free post for Braille and talking books, free travel on public transport and the right to vote.
The top bell has three scenes from the life of Tilly Aston in raised relief along with a quote from Tilly Aston. “Poor eyes limit your sight. Poor vision limits your deeds.” The quote is repeated on a Braille strip on the middle bell. The lowest bell has the highest pitch, it has no inscription but a series of hand prints.
Originally movement sensors trigger a series of tolls, when people approached marks proximity and movement. Unfortunately it no longer works and the marvellous speaker mouths on the base are silent.
In 2008 Hasell and Terence McDermott had a temporary installation, The Speed of Sound Nau Interactive Bells, in Union Lane part of the Laneways Commissions. I didn’t experience this work but again interactivity and bells was an important element.
Hasell’s other Federation Bells, a massive set of tuned hand bells, are spectacularly displayed at one end the Melbourne Museum’s first floor.
Anton Hasell, Federation Hand Bells, Melbourne Museum
Black Mark 
January 3rd, 2020 at 2:23 PM
[…] Hasel has always been interested in the sound that sculpture makes when you tap it; bronze sculpture are hollow. Then he started to make bells: the Tilly Aston Bells, the Federation Bells, lots and lots of bells (link to my post Hasell with Bells). […]