The ARC funded Environmental Research Initiative for Art (ERIA) aims to trial renewable energy with analogue and digital media technologies to create innovative models of public art that are environmentally sensitive and self-sustaining. ERIA aims to conceive, construct and install site-specific public art that accommodates 'eco-logical' practices in ways that regenerate physical environments, while also producing new and meaningful exchanges with a community of users.

The sculptural practices of ERIA researchers extend the physical sites they inhabit, practically and ideologically. By assembling portable energy producing nodes for remote field work, and developing a platform for hosting public events, openings, screenings and online discourse outside the 'white cube,' the projects initiate a dialogue with communities for deeper sustainable interests.

In the long term, ERIA looks for post-industrial sites to reinvigorate with light, sound, and sensory systems; new, novel and robust technologies for use in public spaces; sustainable energy systems to trial; and opportunities for the development of remote communications technology.

ERIA collaborates with industry leaders in renewable energy developement, and community-focused groups including:

• Energy Australia 
• BP Solar
• The Key Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering, UNSW
• V Fuels (vanadium battery producers)
• Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA)
• Community Inc. (Broken Hill community group)