Project Updates: Semaphore, Landmarks Wales, Couple

In the last eight months, I have written on a number of projects with open questions. Here are some answers.

MESSAGE FROM SEMAPHORE IN SAN JOSE

Artist Ben Rubin announces the message and recognizes the code crackers. Rubin sponsored an awardless competition to read the semaphore. The message was deciphered in a couple of days, but Rubin waited a year. The message was the first sentence from Thomas Pynchon's 'The Crying of Lot 49".

NBC Report from San Jose with the code crackers

THE MESSAGE: "One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executer, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary."
First Aesthetic Grounds' Essay

LANDMARKS WALES
Only the uninspired artworks were selected for the Landmark Wales competition. These simple towers are completely forgetable and generic. I had higher hopes for my grandmother's people in Wales.

The Winners in Wales

Mid Ocean Studios Inc - Brenda Oakes and CIRIC - Michael W Cook

Picks by Aesthetic Grounds

Simeon Nelson - Infanger and Parker - Openarch
First Aesthetic Grounds Essay

COUPLES INSTALLED IN NEWBIGGIN
I agreed with my first appraisal that the work is mundane and does not substantially honor the working class people of Newbiggin. Henry's emotionally detached figures bring very little to the imagination except for the loneliness of marriage. Compare with Gormley in Liverpool or the lovely stone church floating on the spit.

Both Henry and Gormley owe a note thanks to the Native peoples of the North American continent. The tall totem poles always face the sea. Both the contemporary and traditional figures join together with us glazing at the waves. Viewing the works is secondary to joining the works. (The architect Palladio used this same "joining" in his 16th century theater with Roman figures watching the play with the audience)

First, here is Anthony Gormley from his 2006 temporaty installation in Liverpool, UK.

Gormley in Liverpool. Photo by lupin_pooter on flickr
See the Save the Gormleys Blog

Second, here is Sean Henry's "Couple" in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, UK

"Couple", Photo by Colin Mitchelson, hojacm on flickr (I emailed Colin due to his photos on Flickr and he graciously took a photo. Thank you so much.)

The historic church in the same field of view as "Couple". Photo by Colin Mitchelson

Night installation of "Couple" in August 2007

"Couple" in the studio by Sean Henry

Site Plan on Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. "Couple" on the waterbreak in the center of the cove.

First Aesthetic Grounds Essay

See the Continued Section for Comment from Chelsea Todd of Newbiggin.