New Plastic Universal - Ben Cove
June 10, 2004 | Levent OZLER
Ben Cove presents 'New Plastic Universal', new works and commissioned pieces for Castlefield Gallery's main exhibition space.
For 'New Plastic Universal' Cove will exhibit drawings, architectural models and a large scale prototype piece 'Art Pod', exploring issues related to design and architecture through proposals for schemes that go beyond our everyday perception of our environment. The work is influenced by Archigram, the Italian group, Superstudio and the architect Lebbeus Woods, with whom Cove shares a common desire to produce ideas that would radically alter our built environment, giving us glimpses of a new utopian vision.
Cove's interest in ideological approaches alongside visual production techniques has led to his creation of images of proposals, which though ideologically sound, are far from comprehensive designs. His central interest lies not in the details of how to build such schemes, but in the approach and the state of mind involved, and importantly in the visual language used to illustrate such schemes. It is an attempt to communicate a means of perception rather than offer a set of practical solutions.
Many of the proposals are Manchester sited, although it is not Cove's intention to explicitly 'sell' these schemes in the work; instead they act as a beginning point for the images produced.
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