Critical mass: public artwork

Critical Mass is an animated light and vapor sculpture, produced based in collaboration with Lulu Quinn and installed June 2004.

In this commission, Westerman has developed and realized a novel approach to socially sited art. The aim of this commission was to produce a ‘smart’ public sculpture that measures and reflects the internal workings and activities of the Millennium Building, Wolverhampton University.

In keeping with many city centre campuses, this is a high profile, high-use building often deemed unfriendly or impenetrable to the local population. Critical Mass demonstrates a novel use of integrated electronic and mechanical systems to represent and communicate the activity inside the building to the city as a whole. It achieves this in a manner that is integral to the architecture of the building while creating an aesthetically engaging and accessible icon for the University and the city.

The work is a dynamic sensing device designed to respond to the intensity of social activity of various sorts that take place within and adjacent to the building. The pipes act as a pressure gauge for the environment, registering the ‘temperature’ of social interaction, academic debate, and other changes. Each pipe is internally illuminated and animated by LED lights; jets of steam are released into the atmosphere, providing a graphic representation of the 'pressure points' inside and around the University.