Featured Project - 'Bottle of Notes'
Internship - Studio Assist/Artworker
1994: Artworker/Studio Assist - Bottle of Notes, Public Art Piece, Claes Oldenberg & Coosje Van Bruggen
Production: Public Sculpture for Town Centre, M'bro, UK
THE BRIEF:
To Celebrate the anniversary of Captain Cook, Middlesboroughs most famous son and Sea-faring Explorer. Pubic Sculpture based in Labdscape gardens outside Cityhall.
DESIGN SOLUTION:
The design was created by Claes Oldenberg and collated from research on Captain Cook's diaries. 'message in a bottle', this was the basi for the design. Excerpts ffrom his personal diary were taken and typographically laid out into 2 geometric nets. These were then rolled into the shape of a tubular note inside a bottle. The production was in sheet steel commissioned from the former British steel, another one of M'bro's famous exports. The sheet steel was then laser cut into the possitive type layer, excess steel was then reused to fabricate childrens playground furniture in the Captain Cook memmorial park.
MY INVOLVEMENT
This was my first professional commercial art job and was based on internship awarded as part of an honour scheme reward from my college (Cleveland College of Art & Design). My work was multi-task based consisting of the following:
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Studio assistant, documenting the design process in video and stills, making presentantation boards for local mayoral sign-off (client gates).
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Sketching visualisations alogside Claes Oldenberg of finalised installation.
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Detailing construction drawings
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General Studio management; tele-conferencing, basic IT in 1994, administration and keyholder of studio.
The piece still stands today even though the initial landscape has changed and been updated with new building developments, improved facilities and a different urban plannng scheme. Even though the landscape now resonates to a different urban beat the 'Bottle of Notes' still fulfills it's brief if not conceptually enhancing the urban landscape as a relic of proof of modernity, especially sitting next to the old city hall building.
POST PROJECT REVIEW: Modernity at Work
19th Century
20th Century
21st Century
Middlesborough Town Hall, French Gothic construction circa 1883-89
'Bottle of Notes' Circa 1994. A public art piece commissioned to honour Captain James Cook. Public Art.
Modernity Timeline
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, MIMA, developed and launched 2007 under charter from the Dorman Trust.