Developers, architects and agents are turning to contemporary Australian art to make their properties stand out from the crowd
5 min
When architect Phillip Mathieson first walked members of Third.i property group through the interiors he had designed for their Kurraba Point “super penthouse”, there were a few raised eyebrows. It wasn’t the million-dollar kit-out of furniture and decor by French luxury brand Liaigre that was disconcerting his clients — it was the art. Not the Brett Whiteley linocut of a dove, or the intricately patterned larrakitj (memorial pole) by Yolngu artist Malaluba Gumana, but the yellow mirrored work by young queer artist Tay Haggarty, which appeared to be pinioned to the wall by four white socks.
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Mathieson, whose architecture firm was charged with the interiors for all 24 residences in Third.i’s new Sydney Harbour-side development (including 21 harbourfront apartments and two sub-penthouses), was given free rein on choosing the art for the penthouses, and engaged the expertise of Artbank: a governmental body whose collection of more than 10,000 Australian artworks spans from the 1920s to now, all available to lease. In the super-penthouse, the selection includes a monumental work in black Belgian marble by the late Melbourne artist Joel Elenberg (who smashed the sales record for Australian sculpture in August 2023 with a similar work, which sold for $925,000) and a mix of abstract and figurative works by significant artists such as Bronwyn Oliver and Marion Borgelt.
Amongst these, Haggarty’s piece stands out: “It’s quite a controversial piece to have in there, given that it’s a very high end development,” says Artbank consultant Carey Corbett, who worked closely with Mathieson Architects to select the works. “I imagine the expected clientele is not so familiar with their work, being a younger artist — and possibly not the sort of artist that some of those prospective buyers would have in their homes.”
But Haggarty’s piece, titled Sun on Bare Back, provides a moment of delicious, cheeky dissonance within the elegant surroundings.
It’s the kind of memorable moment designed to cut through at the top end of the market.
As Mathieson says: “Quite often what happens when there’s a display suite for a project, or even when a project is finished, either it’s left empty or it’s furnished with rental items, and you end up with a bad reproduction poster on the wall; it’s all very generic. The Kurraba project was unusual in that the developer, I think partly because of the market that they were going after and the calibre of the location and the apartment itself, saw the value in buying furniture -— and therefore the natural extension of that was to fully provide the experience of how someone might live.
“The art is part of that.”
Lachie Gibson, founder and CEO of Melbourne developer ANGLE, agrees. His outfit prides itself on providing a holistic package of high quality location, architecture, landscape and interiors — and he sees art as a “crucially important” extension of that. ANGLE champions Australian creatives, partnering with emerging talent (including furniture designer Thomas Lentini, before he broke into the big league) and local heroes such as Dinosaur Designs, design firm Flack Studio, commercial galleries and Artbank, to create distinctive interiors for their high-end residential developments, including the multi-award-winning Fenwick, in Kew.
“We’ve had success over the yearsselling off the plan, but at the end of a project you might have a $6 million penthouse [not yet sold] and so you’re styling it for sale — and the difference between the kind of generic property stylist that the real estate companies use and partnering with someone like Artbank, is huge,” Gibson says.
Even when apartments are sold off the plan, ANGLE typically brokers relationships between buyers and interior designers, who will then do a full furniture and art fit out. “Obviously it’s awesome for the client — it elevates their space and makes it feel incredible. But also for us as a developer, the photographs of those completed spaces become almost our number one marketing tool,” Gibson says.
“It’s pretty easy to go and render something up, but having a built space that’s got amazing artwork is hugely advantageous to us.”
For their latest development, Fenhurst, ANGLE is partnering with Artbank to select hero pieces for the common areas, and with Melbourne gallery Daine Singer for apartment artworks — which will be shown in marketing renders, but available to see in the flesh (and purchase) from the developer’s Harold Street Gallery: a multi-purpose space in Camberwell that was designed by Fleur Sutherland and showcases ANGLE’s regular collaborators alongside a rotating selection of pieces from Artbank and Craft Victoria.
It’s not just developers harnessing art for a competitive edge. When Simon Hakim, CEO of creative agency Hunter, and his wife decided to put their stunning home “Rail House” in Melbourne’s Northcote on the market, they knew they needed art for the massive walls in their central living area.
“Over the years, we’d been talking about putting artwork up there, and had a built-in rail installed specifically for art [but] we couldn’t ever decide on what we liked,” he says. Then a neighbour introduced Hakim to Artbank, which has short and long-term and annual leasing plans that range from $165 to $5500 per annum.
“It was a really good way to test out the art wall — and to see massive works that we were able to display [on the rail] but couldn’t afford,” Hakim says.
In the end, they leased a series ofprints by photographer Bill Henson.
“It filled an empty void; it made a huge impact on the house. [And] we had a lot of comments about the work [from prospective buyers],” says Hakim.
Sydney property agent Georgia Cleary, of McGrath Paddington, says there’s an increased appreciation of art across the market these days, and in the prestige end of the market in particular: “People will pay tens of thousands of dollars to style their properties, and you can’t put prints into those homes.”
McGrath generally asks stylists not to put art on the walls, and instead partners with local artists and galleries to select high-end pieces. “We’ve found that the market responds really well to original works [rather than reproductions or prints],” says Cleary. “It elevates the perception of the property as ‘prestige’.”
Article originally published on Kanebridge News Australia
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As AI productivity trackers reshape workplace evaluations, employees are learning how to manage calendars, activity levels and AI usage to ensure their contributions are recognized.
4 min
What’s more important than being a good employee right now? Looking like a good employee in the eyes of AI productivity trackers that more managers are using to evaluate their teams.
Employee-monitoring systems are especially popular at tech companies and are also used by other white-collar firms that want to probe how people spend company time. The scary thing: You might not even know you’re being watched because many states don’t require disclosure.
Metrics can include performance data that is undoubtedly relevant, such as sales results. But it also can employ dubious proxies like keyboard strokes and how often your computer screen goes into sleep mode.
We generally accepted, or at least understood, heightened surveillance during the work-from-home era. Back then it seemed reasonable for bosses to keep tabs on employees they couldn’t see.
Yet the oversight has only escalated, and tensions are rising, too.
A group of former Meta Platforms employees alleges in a lawsuit that the company used a “constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems” when it began laying off about 10% of its workforce in May. Meta says humans make termination calls.
However that case shakes out, a couple of things are clear. Companies eager to gauge which employees are locked in now have sophisticated AI monitoring systems at their disposal. And they believe they have leverage in a tepid labor market.
So while we may chafe at having our worth reduced to numbers on the boss’s productivity dashboard, we have to play the game as it’s being played. Here are some tips, based on conversations with people who make employee monitoring systems—and others who game the systems.
Calendar integration is one way that productivity trackers have gotten more advanced and, ostensibly, fairer.
Let’s say you make an old-fashioned phone call or attend an in-person meeting. Your Outlook or Slack status may switch to “away,” making you appear as inactive as if you were taking an extended coffee break.
Employee monitors like one made by a company called Insightful cross-check your online status with your calendar to see whether there is a valid reason for your apparent inactivity. If that call or meeting is on your schedule, then the system will recognize that you are busy offline. If nothing is on the books, it could look like you’re slacking off.
Let’s not go any further without addressing the underlying question: How much downtime is permissible during the workday? After all, people have been scared to let managers see anything non-work-related on their screens since personal computers first arrived in offices.
No one knows this better than Roger Wagner, who is widely credited with creating the first “boss button” in the early 1980s. He designed a keyboard shortcut to instantly display a spreadsheet if the boss walked by your cubicle while you were playing a computer game. Boss buttons have been features of countless diversions since. (I confess to using one built into a March Madness streaming app.)
Wagner, the founder of computer-education company 1010 Technologies, says his original design was a joke—more of a commentary on overbearing managers than a cover for lazy employees. Good bosses understand workers need mental breaks throughout the day, he says.
This matches what I heard from Insightful Chief Executive Ivan Petrovic. He says customers that use his company’s workforce-management platform don’t expect employees to stay on task 100% of the time.
“On average companies are aiming for 60% to 80% of your time being utilized for work during the day,” he says.
Go ahead and exhale. It’s probably OK to watch an occasional YouTube video at your desk.
And if you’re going to artificially inflate your activity level, be careful. Hitting 90% could look suspicious.
So don’t leave your mouse jiggler on all day. Choose the right one if you must resort to shenanigans.
There are lots of software applications that mimic the movements of a computer mouse, so you can appear to be working while away from your desk. There are also devices that plug into computer ports and do the same thing.
Corporate cybersecurity systems increasingly block these apps and devices, and productivity trackers claim to be able to detect them. But some workers swear by mouse docks, like one made by Tech8 USA, that keep cursors moving. The company originally made mouse-moving software but now focuses on physical jigglers.
“People are drawn to mechanical solutions because they’re so simple and don’t require software,” says Tech8 Marketing Director Sam Matthews. “As monitoring technology becomes more sophisticated, that distinction has become even more relevant.”
Another popular metric for employee-monitoring systems is AI usage. Companies want to know who is embracing new tools, and it can be tempting to think more is better.
“There’s a performative aspect where employees overblow their usage of AI so that they appear relevant in the organization,” says Andrea Derler, principal researcher at Visier, which helps companies track and analyze employee work habits.
In a recent Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. workers, 48% admitted to exaggerating their AI usage.
This is already an outdated strategy. Using AI for everything used to score points for experimentation. Now it can seem wasteful because many companies are watching AI token spending more carefully.
Look, productivity theater has always been part of work. Most of us aren’t trying to cheat the system, but expectations are changing so quickly that we need to be savvy about what the latest employee trackers are looking for.
Sometimes it takes a little gamesmanship to get full credit for our contributions.
