The Heart beats with a pulse powered by an algorithm attuned to the sensations of its ‘body’, the building, Melbourne Connect. Like a human heart, it beats indefinitely. It will grow accustomed to the ebbs, flows, and surprises of life, moment to moment, day after day. Melbourne Connect’s thousands of building sensors remind me of a body’s senses, monitoring temperature, CO2 levels, movement, and many other things. This artwork speculates on a central point, a heart, for staging the overlooked work of the building in ways our human bodies can sense, even if not fully understand. It prompts us to live and work with an awareness of this life-supporting technology, to empathise with the nurturing aspiration of the environments it sustains for us, and to remember that every decision we make has repercussions beyond our intentions. As a durational artwork, almost a living superorganism, it invites you to live with it, within it, and get to know it over a lifetime, as it is getting to know us. Revealing your heart is risky. This artwork is a provocation to risk revealing yours. Work with the mysteries of heart and don’t leave yours at the door.

There are many secrets of The Heart, and I am sure these will come to light in due course. However, the small, discrete heart rate monitor on the staircase is one people may get to know first. Placing your finger on it connects your body — your heartrate — to The Heart’s pulse.

Paul Lim and Bosco Shaw from Additive Lighting have worked for three years designing and overseeing the creation of the physical hardware of The Heart. Paul led the work on The Heart Array, designing the LEDs and brass droppers. He developed the algorithm to distribute the density of the LEDs so they emanate from the centre of The Heart. He also created an algorithm to sample what I call the ‘ghost heart’, the shell of brick pieces where the brass droppers intersect with the form of a human heart inspired by the voluntarily donated hearts in the University’s collection.

Bosco led the design work on The Heart Node, collaborating closely with the scientific glass, neon, and brass artisans who fabricated different elements. He also worked on the initial materials development reconstituting the bricks from the former Royal Women’s Hospital with concrete expert Dr. Rackel San Nicolas. Paul and Bosco have worked tirelessly on this project through an extraordinary three years of iterations and redesigns. It is rare to find such passionate artists, thinkers, organisers, and dreamers