Brainstorm Platform 2: Walls have Ears

The latest platform of "Brainstorm" has just been installed in the new Gainsborough Library. There are another two figures in white coats but this time their business is sound and music.

The lady is captured mid performance, having an Elvis moment, collar up, her microphone pulled in close.

The man, perhaps a little shocked to see his colleague letting her hair down, reaches out with his Heath Robinson ear trumpet machine to record the moment for posterity. Like our TV and radio presenters he has to multi-task, simultaneously listening to messages from the brain and recording the music he hears.

As you might expect from "Brainstorm" walls really do have ears. One huge ear attached to the wall which makes a link through to the library's recording studio behind. Be careful what you say the walls are listening...

Brainstorm

Why is there a bright gold sculpture of a human brain suspended in the entrance of the new Gainsborough Library in Ipswich? This is Paul's latest (ongoing) public sculpture and he wanted to build something that gets to the core of what the new library is all about.

The brain is at the centre of the library to celebrate this new building as storehouse of human knowledge; but Gainsborough Library does not match your old fashioned idea of a library. It is a place of inspiration for the whole community with its digital sound studio, community rooms, activity programme, cafe, garden, graffiti wall and children's area. For Paul the brain just the beginning, the nerve centre that leads you into this place of inspiration, imagination, and learning.

Watch this space...

The gold brain is the first installment of this growing sculpture. Over the next six months new additions to "Brainstorm" will arrive. Every few months a silver tube will appear on the brain reaching out like a communication line to join onto a platform on the wall. The platforms will have three-dimensional metal figures on them carrying out demonstrations of science, art, history, literature and nature: human endeavour across the disciplines.

About the next platform:

Without giving away too much Paul is working on the theme of vision and creativity for the first platform. It will also pay tribute to 'Thomas Gainsborough', the famous 17th century painter, namesake of this area of Ipswich where he once lived.