A collaboration between Chris Fox and Dillon MacEwan, 'Mother of Invention' 2011 was commissioned for the Ausgrid Learning Centre, in Wangal Country, Silverwater, Sydney.

Cities operate as a complex array of multiple networks. The Ausgrid site functions as the heart of this array, like a microcosm of the city itself. This sculpture both gathers and unravels this inter-connectedness using dynamic components from Ausgrid and sprawling tubes and piping visible throughout the void.

Drawing its energy from a number of sources then spreading and feeding back into the environment, this sculpture references an organism that’s grown and evolved to its circumstances. Planting itself here and stretching out in search of energy and information, this apparently haphazard, ongoing experiment like the laboratory of an early electrical pioneer or mad scientist. This work looks at a quirkier perspective on the objects that make up the citys energy network.