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Canberra Today 17°/20° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

All eyes on the ‘Liloptica’ as Floriade goes digital

FLORIADE organisers have created a unique hybrid flower for this year’s festival, but not by the usual horticultural methods, and not even in the real world.

The "liloptica", a digitally created hybrid flower that is the symbol of Floriade 2013.
The “Liloptica”, a digitally created hybrid flower that is the symbol of Floriade 2013.
The “Liloptica” is a three-dimensional digital image, created as a symbol of the flower show’s 2013 theme, “Beautiful Innovation”.

The new virtual flower is made up of a lotus emerging from the centre of a lily, which presumably represents “beauty”, while “innovation” is taken care of by optic fibres – the technology that makes the National Broadband Network so fast – sticking out from the middle where the flower’s stamens should be.

“Floriade 2013’s theme of Beautiful Innovation sees science and technology collide with the world of art and design and this year’s creative concept, the Liloptica, epitomises that,” an Events ACT spokesperson tells us.

At this stage there has been no suggestion that any physical prototypes of the Liloptica will feature among the real-life blossoms.

As if one conceptual flower isn’t enough for all of us to share, the Floriade website will soon feature a hybrid flower designer, an online app which will allow anyone with an internet connection to have a go at constructing their own cyber-flower.

“We hope to inspire our audiences – both those who attend Floriade and those who are unable to make it to the festival – by inviting them to create their own unique flower with the online flower designer,” the Events ACT spokesperson explains, adding that the web-app will be available from mid-August.

Of course, those who can make it will get to see over one million real flowers and other plants, filling almost 9000 square metres of garden beds that have been artistically arranged to represent Canberra’s iconic buildings, as a nod to the centenary year.

floriade 2013 (32)There will be over 600,000 annuals and more than 460,000 bulbs, including roughly 230,000 pansies, 48,000 tulips and 112,000 violas.

Floriade has gone for a low-key approach in 2013, focusing on sustainability, food and new technology, beginning with an opening weekend featuring Masterchef winner Julie Goodwin, who is also an ambassador for Oxfam’s GROW campaign, as well as demonstrations on sustainable food production and “urban homesteading“.

“Smart living” in week one will continue the focus on sustainable living, organic gardening and permaculture while week two’s “future style” will showcase cutting edge fashions.

Week three is all about invention, with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki hanging around and entries from a competition for aspiring inventors on display. In week four it’s “contemporary cultures” with the runner-up to Julie Goodwin’s 2009 Masterchef crown, Poh Ling Yeow.

As always there’ll be plenty of activities for children in the Kids’ Corner and this year also sees the return of the popular Floriade Nightfest, with no increase in the ticket prices from last year – $25 for adults, $10 concession card holders and children under 17, $50 for a family of four and no charge for kids under 4 years.

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