Art Across The City 2012

Artist David Blandy introduces his work for Art Across The City 2012

I’ve made a Guitar Hero-type game that pits two Swansea figures against each other, Dylan Thomas and the Swansea Devil. I was reading Thomas’s “And Death shall have no dominion”, and it really reminded me of some 90’s rock lyrics, like the Melvins or Jesus Lizard. So I worked with this band, The Wailingest Cats, to create a dissonant rock song version of the poem. I guess I wanted to point at the way we find meaning and insight in strange places, like thinking about world politics while playing along to Black Sabbath’s War Pigs on Guitar Hero 2.

I like to work with things that already exist, like songs, films and games, changing their contexts to try to work out what they mean, how we interact with them, and how they might change us.

It makes things like this “Battle of the Soul: Swansea Devil vs Dylan Thomas” feel familiar, approachable.

It’s been a great process, gathering Manga artist Inko’s interpretations of Thomas, a guitar wielding Devil, and the gates of hell, and The Wailingest Cat’s interpretation of the poem, and trying to weld them together using a DIY song game programme called Frets on Fire.

I’m glad the machine is going to move around (in a converted Horse Box!), haunting different spots with its crunching guitars and gaudy graphics. I’m hoping it’s not obviously “art”, but something that engages people’s attention enough to make them try to figure out what it might be, what it might mean.

David Blandy



David Marchant.

For this project I was interested in working with the public within a space in Swansea, to create a social commentary and a visual conversation. I opted to do this on Wind Street late on a Saturday night to interact with people who were at their most expressive and unconditioned state. I installed an 8ft by 4ft chalkboard on Wind Street and invited people to draw their self portraits and write comments. The response was overwhelming and people were only to keen to interact with this work. I decided to use the medium of neon, which fitted into this bright vibrant heart of the party goer’s paradise.

For this specific piece, I wanted the initial appearance of the neon to create a literal, fun element within the work which was accessible to the masses. On closer refection I also wanted images that, for me, had underlying conceptual connotations depicting & darker side of society. This multi-layered work created using this medium envelops the social world of drink, drugs, sex, the grotesque and ridiculous.

The neon art pieces, extracted from the designs drawn on the night, will hang on trees where the initial public interaction took place.

‘On it till you vomit’, a title taken from the chalkboard has already caused controversy. The neon drawing will now hang with text omitted, the image portraying the grotesque.

The image of ‘Dancing girl’, was of particular interest to me as the drawing was created with no arms and no facial features apart from two dots for eyes. The figure, for me, portrays naivety and non-restraint.

‘All night long’, is a social hybrid, androgynous in its appearance it crosses sexual boundaries.

‘Cowin’ lush’, for me, was a stereotypical, plasticised party-goer, an image depicting societies need to keep up with appearances.

Working with Locws on this project has enabled me to work directly within the public realm and to produce a site specific art work, which is of its time. The public art that I have produced is ‘by the public for the public’, depicting the ‘here and now’ on Wind Street, Swansea.

Jock Mooney here.

I’ve done a work called the ‘Swansea Kebab’ which will be in Castle Gardens. I chose five iconic images associated with the area and skewered them together, forming a portrait of Swansea. The idea partially came from an iconic Bonnie Tyler album cover (‘Faster than the Speed of Night’) which has a typically ‘80s laser beam travelling through Bonnie’s ears. I swapped a laser for a kebab skewer.

I’ve exhibited my works in unused shop windows on several occasions over the years, but this is actually my first ‘proper’ piece of public art, which is a realm I find fascinating – it is just such a different way to show art, and to experience it. I certainly aimed, and hope, that this ‘portrait’ will make people smile, though (like the rest of my work) it does teeter on the duality axis of humour ‘n’ horror in a sort of pantomime-ish manner. It also brings to mind some kind of Clash of the Titans styled ‘gift’ from the Gods, like many of my works there is a shrine like presence to it.

Obviously with public art you are running the risk of offending the public, or making them hate you. My work is temporary, so if the city deem it awful it at least won’t be there for ever! I do, however, hope that it will be taken well, but we’ll just have to see. It certainly isn’t what you expect to see in the centre of Swansea, at least I don’t think it is! It really is great to see something outside of the typical gallery white cube space, and I hope it introduces both locals and the rest of the world to LOCWS international, and Swansea! It is important to remind the public, and ourselves as artists, that great art projects are not just confined to major capital cities.

With one week to go until the Art Across The City launch event at the National Maritime Museum, Swansea, the most common question I’m asked is ‘how is it all going?’

I’m tempted to say ‘terrible, it’s all going wrong’, just to feed a little gossip mongering, but in reality, it’s all going very well, thank you very much for asking.
Week one of installation flew by, with Fiona Curran’s work going up without any hiccups. All the other work has arrived and is being prepped for install.

Of course, when presenting work in the public realm, the possibility for failure is always heightened, but that’s a positive rather than something to fear. I used to think managing multiple projects in the public realm was like juggling chainsaws, but I was wrong. It’s all about balancing out the workload; trust in your colleagues and liaising closely with the artists, and perhaps more importantly at this stage, keeping the public informed.

That’s not to say we’re not having those wide-awake 3am moments. That comes with the job. I woke in a sweat thinking I’d written pubic instead of public in all our promotional literature. That was a good one.

No one is stuck in China; no one has caused a power cut across South Wales (I’ve seen both happen) and, touch wood, no one will say pubic instead of public at the launch event.



Sneak Peek Alert!

‘Shelters’ is currently in production, a new artwork by Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan as part of the next Art Across The City event, which opens in 12 days.

We are so excited and cannot wait to see it installed in the city centre with the October sunshine beaming, it’s going to be magnificent!

Erin – Arts Outreach Coordinator