For our 2022 Festival Edition, we brought on visual artist Dave Court to create an interactive magazine cover that takes you into the creative spaces of Adelaide artists.

Why focus on internal spaces for this cover?
Like everyone, I’ve been spending a lot more time inside over the last couple of years, and as a result this has changed the way that I use and think about my domestic space. I think it has been the same for a lot of people, especially artists and makers that work alone, who might have moved their workspaces home, or changed the way they use and interact with their internal spaces.

How was the artwork created?
Changing opportunities due to the pandemic accelerated me in exploring more and different ways of making, especially digital artworks. These are all 3D Lidar scans of the working spaces of artists and creatives featured in this issue of CityMag, intersecting with a few public and outdoor iconic ‘festival’ spaces. The scans are made using my iPhone, imported to the computer and composed using free software called Blender.

What elements of artmaking and the festival season was it important for you to capture in this work?
For me this piece was thinking about artists and makers emerging from their spaces of creating into places of presenting work over the festival season – and the parallel emergence of all of us with easing restrictions emerging from our domestic spaces into public spaces again for the festival season. I think the special thing about all of this is the connection and community that it creates, in the making as well as consumption of the work, capturing the similarities between solitary workspaces.

Dave Court’s workspace

What does Adelaide’s festival season mean to you?
Festival season feels like a time of year when everything ramps up to maximum energy – the weather is great, people are out and about every night, there’s a so many things to do all the time. This is what I was thinking about with the glowing neon tubes on the cover, a vibe that takes over the city, connecting people and spaces, united by the festival time energy.

Can a space affect the type of work an artist produces?
I think it depends on the kind of artist and the kind of work they’re trying to make, but a space can definitely impact the kind of work a person makes. Over the last few years, I’ve moved into larger studio spaces, allowing me to work on physically bigger projects and public artworks, and I’ve also been getting deeper into digital realms, working in my study at home, which just fits a computer desk and a bookshelf and that’s about it.  It’s also nice sharing a studio space with other artists, which can bring about collaboration or input that you wouldn’t get otherwise.

What are your hopes for festival season 2022?
That we manage to dodge a COVID derailing, fingers crossed for no disastrous new variant, that people are sensible and careful enough so that the medical system is able to maintain a handle on cases.

What are your hopes for South Australia’s arts community in the year ahead?
The same as everyone, I guess. Healthy recovery for the whole sector and everyone individually, that people are able to continue to pivot, adjust and make good things under this continued uncertainty.

Bring Dave Court’s cover to life

If you’ve got the Artivive app on your phone, point your camera at the image below – or at the magazine if you come across it in the wild.