Why Leeds is getting a lighthouse. It’s the best thing to come out of the 2023 European Capital of Culture fiasco says Phil Kirby.
Culture is confusing. Complicated. Sometimes it’s downright incomprehensible.
I’m not the only one to think this. My sister is in New York on holiday and took the kids for an afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art. Here’s what she put on Facebook…
I don’t know about you but this looks like the contents of my recycling bin the morning after the night before to me. I can see why modern art galleries have problems with cleaning staff regularly dumping the entire contents of an exhibition into the nearest skip. Cleaners clean; they aren’t the problem. If artists stopped making work that’s difficult to distinguish from a pile of crap the problem would disappear overnight. It would certainly help the part-time, low paid workers who have got enough in their lives to worry about without having to deal with the intricacies of post-modern aesthetic practice.
Still, most art will have its appreciators – just look at the responses to my sisters comment – and the one firm fact I do know about culture is that the more of it there is about the better off we are as a place to live. A city needs culture like a peacock needs its plumage. The peacock doesn’t actually need all that bling on its backside, and it doesn’t directly benefit from carrying the extra weight. Showy tail feathers are what the scientists call a “redundant signal effect”, which is natures equivalent of an inward investment strategy. It makes the flashiest, showiest, gaudiest cock the most attractive proposition relative to its less well endowed competition. A fowl that can afford all those fancy feathers must be a good bet in the evolutionary stakes.
And it’s the same with culture. A city with a large cultural endowment must be a better place than one that concentrates on the more drab, utilitarian concerns. Look, we can afford all this! We must be amazing!
This is the impression I came away with from an event at the Town Hall a couple of days ago to promote the next stage in the evolution of Leeds 2023. The city may have been disappointed not be allowed to compete for European Capital of Culture, but we aren’t going to be downhearted. Instead of packing away our cultural plumage for another day and concentrating our energies on the dull but necessary chores of economic development, the provision of routine services and making sure the buses run on time, the city has decided that culture is at the heart of everything, strategically (“the new Culture Strategy aims to place culture at the heart of the city’s narrative and embed culture across all policy areas” says the Leeds Cultural Strategy)… let’s show ’em!
Personally I’m not sure what this means in practice. Will we have a J G Ballard on the Highways Committee? An Eric Gill in charge of Dog Wardens (don’t ask!) A Julian Fellowes scrutinising planning permission? Obviously I am being facetious, but remember it wasn’t so long ago that a Leeds cultural icon was embedded in a lot of policy areas where he really out not to have been bedded at all.
There’s nothing naturally nice about culture, or the people who make it. Many policy areas could do with a bit of protection from certain cultural types if you ask me.
Still, I’m all in favour of the quantitative value of culture. The more the merrier. So it’s a good thing that Leeds has a plan to invest £35 million into culture in the next few years.
The explanation for the new direction and the financial implications for the city is on the Leeds 2023 website.
We’ll be getting a cracking new People’s Theatre, a spectacular sculpture extravaganza, and a landlocked lighthouse…
Now, I’ve seen a lot of nay-saying, poo-pooing and yah-booing on social media over the last couple of days about the lighthouse idea. Many people questioning the cost, or whether we need a lighthouse at all. A city doesn’t “need” an art gallery, a sculpture park, or fountains; some things a city does just for the sheer outrageous fuck of it. A lot like a peacock.
And, let’s face it, a lighthouse is a bit of a phallic statement. A classic redundant signal if ever there was one.
My only slight quibble is that it’ll be made out of concrete. I’ve always thought an inflatable rubber lighthouse would be much more suitable, as well as cheaper, more sustainable, and easier to maintain. It’s not like it’s going to be pounded by forty foot waves on the edge of the River Aire in Holbeck, is it! The only danger is the wind whipping from Bridgewater Place and the odd abandoned syringe along the canal.
And an inflatable could be fitted out with some kind of responsive technology that read the mood of the city and varied the amount of air in the structure accordingly. On days when Leeds was feeling a bit down in the dumps the lighthouse would be deflated. On days when we felt up for anything on top of the world and full of the joys of spring… well, you get the picture.
It would be the sort of art that anyone in the city could instantly appreciate and relate to. It might even make my sister smile.
A proper Cock of the North.
Hello there Phil. It’s Sour again.
Let me just run through this article bottom to top or is that “bottom up” as they say in the consultation business.
The lighthouse has got to be inflatable. As you correctly say nothing could be more exciting and enticing for visitors than seeing a giant phallus stiffening or collapsing on the South Bank according to the public mood in the city. I could imagine further enhancements could be added – the red and white stripes could brighten or soften and the light on the top flash and rotate faster or slower.
Of course, there is nothing original in the world of public art these days and I guess you know that an illuminated tower which changes colour according to public mood of a city has been done before with the D-Tower in Doetinchem in the Netherlands. http://v2.nl/archive/works/d-tower.
Since this project was originally set up just after the Millennium I assume smart city technology and the potential of big data have moved the boundaries of possibility considerably. Just bear with me for a sec as I imagineer a scenario where Leeds ODI harness the vitality of LCC’s Citizens Panel who then input their emotional states by smart phones or wearable devises, either continuously in real time or at least several times a day with the lighthouse behaving accordingly – should be spectacular or at the very least “iconic”.
Of course, this is not going to happen, so we go back to the original design and ask ourselves what is this lighthouse supposed to represent? What can we say beyond fun to look at? Heritage wise is it saying Leeds’s inventors and industrialists of 18th and 19th centuries were not hard nosed and exploitative but could design structures which provided safety, guidance and security. It would be nice to think. With this being privately funded however personally speaking, I’m getting more of a take on illumination and beckoning. “Come here and invest; here’s a place you can make money”.
Obviously, the gallery cleaners and rubbish argument is well known. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563671/Crumbs-Cleaner-throws-broken-biscuits-lying-floor-art-gallery-unaware-installation-worth-8-000.html
But I would make a similar comment on a more local example about the problematic of art appreciation – the exhibition at the Art Gallery of the work of Joseph Beuys. From the information on the wall I was led to believe that I was in the presence of work by a landmark German artist of the post-war period who had been, among other things: a product of this time being a pilot shot down on the Eastern Front. He had helped to rebuild the reputation of German art and European art more generally in the 1960’s. He was a father of Arte Povera – making art out of everyday substances. He performed alongside and within his work and he had a radical out look through which he suggested we are all artists and should all harness our creative potentials to change ourselves and the world.
Sadly, in practice the work itself was often obscure to the uniformed so I came away thinking “I guess this is OK if you like felt”.
But more importantly than these feeble attempts at humour I would finally like to come to what I think is you crucial sentence reflecting where this push for culture is taking us – “the city has decided that culture is at the heart of everything, strategically (“the new Culture Strategy aims to place culture at the heart of the city’s narrative and embed culture across all policy areas” says the Leeds Cultural Strategy)” Hmmm “Heart of the city’s narrative” ???
Let’s be frank I’m skeptical of what I call “totalising narratives” those formulations of words and practices from which there appears to be no escape and to which everyone is expected to subscribe. The elevation of “Culture” is only the most recent of several.
To illustrate where I’m coming from clearly two of the most demanding narratives dominating our everyday lives are being “economically active” and managing ones “health and wellbeing”. Briefly then the requirement to be “economically active” is paramount not only self-evidently for financial survival but also since the boundary to an alternative “life on benefits” is so draconically policed. Interestingly a way out may be at hand as Universal Basic Income is now emerging as an idea. A bit like this idea of self- managing your pathway to work is that of self-managing your health. OK if we are forced to accept NHS under-funding in the face of rising demand where do we go next – well obviously everyone will have to accept the responsibility to manage themselves so crudely speaking we all now entrapped within narrative of diet, exercise, counting our units, being aware of symptoms, welcoming breakthroughs etc etc. Compulsory self-monitoring through Fitbits is clearly on its way with treatment denied to anyone who has not led the virtuous life.
Now we have the narrative of “Culture” which is a very adaptable and pliable. It has evolved over time from the specifics of string quartets and Shakespeare sonnets in the works canteen to something more total involving economic development, place identity and social inclusion. Again, there is no exit available. “Culture” like “Work” and “Wellbeing” has become all pervasive. Although different people for different reasons make certain exceptions around the edges, the language, policy and practices of “culture” have become all but inescapable.Perhaps you live in a community that is “culturally detached”; we have an answer for that we’ll send some culture through to a venue near you or perhaps an “animateur” might come in handy. Perhaps you are lonely and isolated which may be damaging your health; you need to get culturally included – have you tried Zumba or going for a run? Perhaps we need to demonstrate that “we are all in this together”, we share common British values and a consensual national historic memory; we have an event or a heritage site for that. You are member of a community group which in some way “does culture”; that’s great, welcome aboard we welcome all (nearly all) forms of participation. We are totally committed to inclusion.
So, I guess (apart from the ironic intention which I guess underlies what you are saying) that on the surface I would not agree with your statements that “the one firm fact I do know about culture is that the more of it there is about the better off we are as a place to live.” Or “A city with a large cultural endowment must be a better place than one that concentrates on the more drab, utilitarian concerns.” Or “It’s a good thing that Leeds has a plan to invest £35 million into culture in the next few years”.
Cheerio for now
Sour