Hello Friends - Bridgewater Place, Leeds

'An almost public art work that is at once grandiose and playful - filled with contradiction. A communist totem in a capitalist temple, the pinnacle of 20th century elegance combined with cave man aesthetics, a sci-fi vision of the ruins of brave new world in a proto ruin of a brave new world - Woody Allen's Sleeper or Charlton Heston in the planet of the Apes.' Read more

'Hello Friends' was commissioned by Landmark Development Projects and St James Securities for the atrium of Bridgewater Place, Leeds - an office, retail and residential tower. The sculpture is a column of flashing images held inside 9 stacked red fibreglass modules reaching 17.5m high.

Brancusi's seminal work 'Endless Column' of 1937 is a key reference for the commission, as an icon of 20th century art and a giant monument (29.35m) it signifies the values and progress of its time. 'Endless Column' is echoed in both the form and images of 'Hello Friends', which play out a science fiction narrative calling upon Paleolithic rituals, civic society, tall buildings, space travel, the search for unknown intelligences and new ways of living. Photographs of model scenes crafted from the same rudimentary film making techniques of early 20th century science fiction are illuminated in programmed sequences as the sculpture attempts to communicate with passers by about where mankind may be heading.