Competitive spacing out: Can you out-nothing your fellow Melburnians?

First staged in 2014, Space Out Competition invites entrants to dress in a costume that somehow relates to their working life while completely eschewing any semblance of busyness. Entrants’ heart rates are monitored every 15 minutes while the audience votes for the best costume. The winner is selected based on a combination of aesthetic and (non) performance.

While there’s a clear sense of ironic fun to be had in the idea of competing to do nothing, Woopsyang insists the idea for the work came from a serious place – a sense of burnout she experienced while working as a painter in 2013.

“Weeks passed, and my canvas was still blank,” she said via email. “I was terrified. I thought my creativity had run out, and I felt deeply disappointed in myself. As time went on, I became anxious and guilty, and I couldn’t sleep.”

Researching burnout, she concluded: “It wasn’t that I lost my talent – it was that I had used too much energy. That’s when I started becoming interested in why burnout happens.”

In Korea, as in many other places, “spacing out” is often seen as a waste of time. “I wanted to change that perception by turning it into something valuable,” she said. “Nobody thinks sports are useless, right? In sports, people compete, and the winner becomes a hero. So, I designed the Space-Out Competition in a similar way – to make it seem productive and meaningful.

“From the moment we wake up to the moment we sleep, we are glued to our phones. Our brains never get a break,” she adds. “I believe that in today’s world, we actually need this kind of ‘useless’ time.”

Other highlights of Rising 2025 include the previously announced Swingers, in which the upper reaches of Flinders Street Station will be converted to a mini-golf course designed by artists including American Miranda July and Australian duo Soda Jerk, and a laser installation by Shohei Fujimoto, formerly of renowned collective TeamLAB, that will turn the Capitol Theatre into “an immersive field of red beams that respond to your movement and perception”.

The music program for which the festival has quickly become renowned will be led by an Australian debut for British singer Suki Waterhouse, a solo show from Portishead singer Beth Gibbons, a concert in Maori language from Marlon Williams and choir, and the disco-tinged gospel sounds of Mississippi’s Annie and the Caldwells.

There will also be a return for the all-day city music festival Daytripper, centred in the Melbourne Town Hall, Max Watts and the surrounding laneways and arcades.

Rising will run June 4-15.

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