4/19/2004: Public artwork changes via text message

[Undertoad]

Welcome to Middlesbrough, where they have just installed this public artwork. No, it's an artwork.

It turns out the whole point of this art is that it changes color if you send it a text message from your wireless phone. The commands it will recognize are: blue; starvibe; xxx; pearl; boro and chromapop.

"boro", it turns out, changes the color to the local sports team's colors, red and white.



If the full story is to be believed, this is a new centerpiece to the entire town and is much more beautiful than these stupid pictures let on.

full story

[scothand]

From the headline, I was expecting it to actually display the text messages somehow, instead of just change colors... which I think would lead to a much more interesting display of the community.

[mrputter]

Why do you tell me you were expecting it to actually display the text messages somehow instead of just change colors which you think would lead to a much more interesting display of the community just now?

[Happy Monkey]

Eliza? Is that you?

[YellowBolt]

Hmph. Now, not even artwork is safe from spam.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I wonder how many pedestrians will get run over by drivers trying to text message the sign?

[onetrack]

It's amazing what the English will do to brighten up their boring, dreary, grey, cities ..

Where else would you find a phallic, glowing, public structure in the centre of town, displaying it's glitzyness for all to see .. and changing its composition, mood, glow, et al .. after intimate interaction with any passing male, who has a phone ..

Well? .. you gotta admit, young males would be nearly all the ones doing the texting ..

You get my drift? .. Masturbation on a grand public scale .. ?

[CzinZumerzet]

How many English cities do you know Onetrack? I think it's a touch dismissive to describe them as 'boring, grey, dreary'. Parts of some world cities are but we don't have the monoploy, and many of our towns and cities are hugely colourful and lively.

This flash gimmick is just another boy's toy isn't it, as in 'bigger the boys more expensive the toys' and I personally don't think anything could make it appear beautiful or remotely artistic. There is a lovely wind and light sculpture on Waterloo Bridge over the Thames which is composed of a complex sctructure of multi coloured strip lights, which change constantly in response to movement of air/wind. I often used to miss my bus home from work because I had become so absorbed in watching the light show I failed to see the bus. I can't see this new thing having a similar effect.

[onetrack]

Plenty, Caz .. Despite the fact I'm an Aussie, my Dad was born and bred right next door to you, in Portsmouth .. and my Mum came from Dunfermline, right next to Edinburgh .. and I've travelled the length and breadth of the U.K., staying for lengthy periods, in places as diverse as Portsmouth, Reading, Aberdeen, Ilkley, York, Edinburgh and Nottingham ..

I guess you just have to experience a dose of good ol' Aussie clear blue skies, and bright sunshine for hours on end .. to realise just how grey and dreary most of the U.K. is .. at least the northern 2/3rds, anyway ..
Not to worry .. half of Europe and all of the Scandinavian countries suffer from the same blight .. we won't hold it against you ..
No small wonder SAD disorder is so prevalent in those places.

I guess the sparkling lights on the phallic art is an attempt to brighten your dreary days .. I'd certainly need something like it if I lived there ..

[CzinZumerzet]

Is Aberdeen the place referred to as 'The Granite City', think it is, and you can't get much more grey than that and we know the sun doesn't spend much time in Scotland. I can see that an Aussie or someone from a more temperate clime would think of our cities as grey, the weather very often is, but I still don't see where you get the dreary boring idea......

The Victorians built my small town almost entirely of locally mined Limestone, the type that created the natural glory of Cheddar Caves and undergound rivers and of course the Cheddar cheese mines.

In winter and when damp, the stone is deep grey veined with white quartz but in summer it is a gorgeous milky pearly grey, almost white, and the quartz deposites dazzle and delight the eye. We don't need light shows either because every night the sunsets out over the ocean explode every colour like blast funaces of gigantic wild proportion. Sorry for waxing on, but I think it's how people see towns and cities that make them what they are and sometimes it's how we feel about ourselves that adds to the overall effect. Remember what Johnson said about those '...tired of London, are tired of life...'?

But I wouldn't pay tuppence for that thing in Middlesbr'gh! Do you think it's a way of concealing a 'phone aerial inside and in the inner city? There have been some ingenious methods to defeat planning opposition and if this is one it's a bit obvious!

[jaguar]

It's amazing what the English will do to brighten up their boring, dreary, grey, cities ..

Gotta agree too, another Aussie that's spent too much time on the wrong side of the channel. Weather must be close to the worst on earth. I honestly prefer -10 and crisp to the godawful drizzle that infects most of England for most of the year. There are some great towns and villages in England (and some wonderful pubs, with some world-best cider......) but on the whole I find them bleak, boring, ugly and miserable places.

That said there are some places in England I do love, particularly the moors. Spent hours warndering dartford moor, incredibly relaxing, utterly noone about except the occasional pony.

CzinZumerzet I've been to the Chedder caves, you must be living in the Somerset/Dorset kinda area? I've got rellies who stayed in Yeovil for about 3 weeks before bailing it was so godawful a couple of weeks ago but most of that country is lovely.

[CzinZumerzet]

Jaguar, Cheddar is about eight miles from where I live on the lovely Somerset coast and the Dartmoor you refer to is a famous wilderness area of tremendous unspoilt grandeur. And I know Yeovil well, it's in the middle of the wetlands where wild deer and ponies thrive, and you can watch hawks of several kinds swoop on their prey and heron fishing rainbow trout from the streams. My main spare time pastime is walking/rambling and this is lovely countryside and coastline for doing just that, getting off the road and walking, and the weather is irrelevant, and anyway who in their right mind comes to England for the weather?!

Any more of this and you'll think I work for the tourist board but we don't need too many tourists around here!

'..bleak boring ugly miserable godawful and grey..' You must tell me where you saw all that.

And you are right about the cider, it's truly unbeatable!!

[jaguar]

The cider is indeed magnificent. I'm racking my brain for the names of a couple of local pubs that had both excellent food and wonderful, truly wonderful cider. Somerset coast is indeed beautiful. When my camera gear arrives I'll have to head over again and spend a while on the moor, some incredibly landscapes and ponies make excellent foreground interest . I'm not denying for a second there are lovely places in England but....

'..bleak boring ugly miserable godawful and grey..' You must tell me where you saw all that.

If you want a nearby example go to Yeovil, horrible little place. I did like Mole Valley Farmers though, funny little place. Much of London is pretty horrible too. I just found the number of bleak, miserable locations I found myself in was well above average. Architecture for a country that has produced to world-class guys is horribly backward too. Admittedly that's a blight of the suburbs anywhere and there are plenty of concrete jungles in Switzerland, my postal address for now.

One oddity I notice every time I do is that so many people have convertibles for a country that sees so little sunshine.

[CzinZumerzet]

It's wishful thinking Jag!! But seriously now, the sun shines in England, honest it does, and we have serious heat some days. I don't have immediate access to met office records but I remember last summer we had long periods of 26-29C during July and August and I had a melanoma removed which must surely prove something!!

Watch Wimbledon and see the sweltering miasma of pollution and sunshine, and most years we have the tension of 'will the rain stop long enough to finish the tournament'. It has never gone into extra time...yet, and that's in June.

I know how ghastly some of the more modern architecture is, the concrete jungles of the sixties are a blight on many towns and cities. Lots are being torn down and what do we get in their place but more and higher and windier inner cities where people's needs are designed out. It's one of the reasons I left London, that and the sparrows coughing in the trees.

I wish I knew Switzerland but it is years since I went there, and that was a few days hopping back and forth over the Alps from Chamonix Mont Blanc. I think it must have been winter because all my memory can find is snowfields and fondue. It was so magical skiing through brilliant sunshine and the cleanest biting air ever.

Next time you visit, try the Ribble valley in Yorkshire. It's truly outstanding and a gift to a photographer, you can still cross the valley in a Roman aqueduct. You need a boat for that, naturally.
Cheers!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Be thankful for the rain the Gulf Stream brings, as it also brings warmth from the Caribbean, that makes your winters bearable. After all the British Isles are the same latitude as Newfoundland and Labrador.