Cannon FM : Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson

"Art in public places enhances the value of developments for years to come." Arts Council of England - An Urban Renaissance, 1989.

Cannon FM is a proposal for a work of art to be sited in Manchester's new Exchange Square. It is a work about public art and the way public art is made and placed in urban situations. It looks at the recent unprecedented growth in public art activity and the issues this raises for artists and for the public. Furthermore Cannon FM clarifies debate about public art through a deft précis of the many ingredients which have led us to the present position.

In the past, public spaces were occupied by statues of politician, industrialists or soldiers, memorials to the war dead and, of course, military hardware. 'The cannon in the park' is a phrase that has been coined to sum up this model of public art.

In the era of Modernism, the commemorative aspect of urban public sculpture was laid in favour of the artist's personal vision. But the notion of monumentality persisted, until it reached its Waterloo with Richard Serra's Titled Arc. This 120 foot long and 12 foot high wall of steel was infamously removed from New York's Federal Plaza in the 1980s following a well-organised campaign by those who objected to its imposition upon a space they used regularly.

In reaction to this kind of public art, and following a general trend in contemporary art practice which gives more weight to context, artists have turned their focus on the people who use a space, and on its history and how this bears on the present. In much recent 'new genre' public art the final product is seen to be representative of the process of engagement with the public through which it is realised.

Cannon FM can be read as a comment upon the persistence of public art's historic condition in contemporary thinking. The cannon is a replica of one captured from the French at the battle of Waterloo and functions as a traditional public trophy. However, like much contemporary public art, it also draws on the history of its site. The Regimental Chapel at the Cathedral and nearby Cannon Street are both adjacent features whose origins lie in military use. More significantly, it reminds us that the opportunity to redevelop Exchange Square resulted from a different sort of military activity - the IRA bomb of 1996.

Cannon FM also takes up the challenge of integrating the artwork with its surroundings and making it relevant to contemporary viewers. The cannon is mounted on a rotating base which is connected to an FM radio. Manchester's profile outside the city has been greatly shaped by its muscil culture and Exchange Square's foremost function as a public site will be leisure and consumption. Thus the provision of a public radio receiver to serve as an interactive focal point is in keeping with this reputation and with the function of the site. When you point the cannon in different directions you retune the radio to a different station. On one level this is just good fun - it's interactive and very simple to use. On another level its about the city as a democratic space in which individual choices have consequence - for the individual and for those people around them.

Cannon FM acts as a critique of its proposed location. The cannon can be pointed at a number of targets written in the circle surrounding it. These include economic rivals, places that signify Manchester's international aspirations, and nearby targets. It highlights the role urban development plays in economic competition between cities and regions, and particularly the role of Exchange Square as an expression of civic pride. A cannon is an anachronistic embodiment of the fiercely competitive climate in which Manchester seeks to attract investment and economic growth at the expense of its competitiors. Exhange Square itself, it seems to imply, is a form of civic ordnance.

In Manchester, public art is an economic regenerative tool. It may represent the green shoots of gentrification in a run down area, or it may be the cherry on top of the redeveloper's cake. Very rarely does it do the things that art can do best, which is to provoke the viewer into questioning the world and their relationship with, to be both engaging and critical, to be both informed by history and wholly contemporary.

Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson's proposal for Cannon FM does all these things, and will almost certainly never be realised.

Martin Vincent Director,
The Annual Programme, Manchester