Deep ROOT (Review of Hull Time Based Arts' 9th ROOT festival)

Deep_ROOT Festival, Hull, 25th - 28th October 2001 Karen Elliot discovers what urban planning would be like if Michael Pinsky was running the show

>>'Transmission' Michael Pinsky's proposal for a new building in Chelsmford

During the last weekend of October a crowd of live art enthusiasts gathered in Hull for the ninth incarnation of the ROOT festival. With a line-up of over twenty artists the highlights included a screening of Shu Lea Cheng's I.K.U, Anne Bevan's installation and a performance by D-Fuse.

The festival kicked off with the Hybrid Networks Conference which was meant to look at the role of the artist in relation to developments in the web, interactive TV and mobile phone industries. Sadly, the day was transformed into a long line of project presentations (including our very own metamute) leaving too little time for the actual discussion.

Over at Timebase we packed into a hot and airless room for the presentation of HTBA's River Commissions. Fortunately, the sleepy crowd soon awoke as the commissioned artist Michael Pinsky took us on a rollercoaster ride of his projects ending with a series of hilarious urban planning concepts.

During a residency at Chelmsford Borough Council, Pinsky introduced a series of hilariously absurd proposals for the development of the town centre. Working together with the council officials, Pinsky introduced Pinsky Projections. The proposals which range from a building which is in actual fact a full sized functioning radio, to Visible Management where Pinsky proposes a cubic glass structure that contains a fully functioning office.

The absolute favourite was the proposal to build a kinetic sculpture which represents the revenue generated from parking tickets.

Pinsky conducted some research into public art in the local square by asking people who work in the square to describe the sculpture which they pass at least twice a day. It turned out that the majority of the people had no idea what the sculpture looked like so Pinsky decided that it was time to come up with something more exciting. Inspired by a conversation about the balance between parking tickets and traffic warden's wages, the three elements of the kinetic sculpture became a representation of the cashflow within this scenario.

It is often the case that councils spend large amounts of money and time trying to produce public art that will reflect and enhance civic pride in the populace and inspire gasps of admiration from visitors. All too often they either end up with something very safe and traditional, or entirely compromised and unintentionally bizarre. I'm thinking of the Newport Red Wave and similar fascinating mistakes. But as Pinsky suggests, public art could more truthfully manifest the preoccupations of bureaucratic civic management in absurd and hilarious ways.