Goldsmiths students work on Cultural Olympiad project
Students from Goldsmiths, University of London, are collaborating with consultancy Art Public on the Bus-Tops project, which will see a series of screen-based installations placed on bus shelter roofs for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
The screens will provide a digital platform for artists to show their work, which can be submitted through the Bus-Tops website. The public can also use the site to discuss which bus stops and artworks they would like to see used.
Students have been working on prototypes with Art Public for about five months, the first of which will be ready in the New Year.
London plane tree wood will be used for the frames to ensure durability, and also to connect the screens with their locality.
Art Public director Alfie Dennen says, ‘When you cut the tree you can see the pollution that has collected over the years – it tells a local story.’ The screens will display information on the tree itself, the pollution and also ‘borough-wide statistics to provide context’.
The installations will be in place from July 2011 until the end of the Olympics in 2012, although ‘TFL has expressed an interest in keeping some of them on’, Dennen says, and some will become ‘time-stamped’ exhibition pieces.
Dennen adds, ‘In terms of legacy, as we encroach on the future, screen technology is becoming ubiquitous, but it’s always prescribed and defined by commercial interests.
‘We’re actively saying, “The urban space is yours, the screen space is yours, the city is yours – play with it.”’
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