A hovercraft built from plastic bottles found washed up on the beach of the river Humber estury. Photo-Sue Guthrie
collecting plastic bottles on the beach at Spurn Point
Having built a boat and car there was a natural thought process to come up with other modes of transport to make but the idea of making a hovercraft developed from the two previous vehicles in a less direct way as well.
When I was testing the driftwood boat a stranger came up to me and suggested making a boat from plastic bottles as they never sank. It was an interesting idea but at the time I didn’t know where I would get so many plastic bottles. However, when I took the pedal car on its first journey to the ‘end of the land’ (Spurn Point) I looked along the beach and realised there were hundreds of them washed up along the high tide line. Every plastic bottle that anyone had thrown into the river or its tributaries far in land had kept on floating. Spurn Point, being a thin piece of land that jutted out into the river estury was like a hook that caught them all as they floated downstream.
In my way I had 'done' 'sea' and done 'land'. Making an aeroplane at the time felt like an impossibility so the best way to tackle 'air' seemed to be a hovercraft.
To complete the integration of materials with the art work; when it came to obtaining an engine I found and purchased one from a small caravan park also on the banks of the river Humber. In a sense even the engine came from the beach.
When I was testing the driftwood boat a stranger came up to me and suggested making a boat from plastic bottles as they never sank. It was an interesting idea but at the time I didn’t know where I would get so many plastic bottles. However, when I took the pedal car on its first journey to the ‘end of the land’ (Spurn Point) I looked along the beach and realised there were hundreds of them washed up along the high tide line. Every plastic bottle that anyone had thrown into the river or its tributaries far in land had kept on floating. Spurn Point, being a thin piece of land that jutted out into the river estury was like a hook that caught them all as they floated downstream.
In my way I had 'done' 'sea' and done 'land'. Making an aeroplane at the time felt like an impossibility so the best way to tackle 'air' seemed to be a hovercraft.
To complete the integration of materials with the art work; when it came to obtaining an engine I found and purchased one from a small caravan park also on the banks of the river Humber. In a sense even the engine came from the beach.
Detail of the main air duct made from 5 litre plastic bottles pop riveted together. On top is a grab handle made from the top of another bottle. Underneath are sections of the skirt made from plastic bags.
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Engine and fan inside a plastic dustbin. The four bottles in the foreground are the petrol tank.
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The deck was made from 2 litre pop and alcohol bottles. The green ones were a drink called 'Lilt'. behind is the air duct that went all the way round the outside. This was made from 5 litre bottles - the ones with a handle.
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The journey with the hovercraft was supposed to be along the mud flats of the river Humber at low tide. The film shows the initial trials but doesn’t show the whole trip as laughably the film ran out. The following still images will give a more complete picture.
The hovercraft was technically inefficient. It took all the power from the engine to keep it out of the mud and moving. After about an hour the engine blew up leaving it stranded a long way out in the estuary in a sea of mud. |
(Film 3 mins, 2 secs.) Camera: Tony Scott.
Music. 'Raindrops KeepFalling on my Head · B.J. Thomas, (Burt Bacharach, Hal David) |
Setting off hovering over more to the middle of the estuary to find the smoother mud in the distance. Photo: Tony Scott
Hovercraft broken down
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The long walk back to the shore
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In the gallery
Ferrens Gallery, Hull. 2002
Ferrens Art Gallery 2002. The floor of the hovercraft is made from transparent 2 litre lemonade bottles and was illuminated from underneath. It was also surrounded by other bottles each one illuminated from inside. These bottles had a photographic transparency of the hovercraft in the landscape (eg. crossing mud flats on the River Humber).
This work was also shown in 'LAT', 'Odapark', Venray, Holland. 2005. For info on publication click here. |
A section of each bottles is cut at an angle so that when it is placed on the floor it looks like it is semi submerged in the floor. Imitating floating in water.
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Oda Park, Venray,Holland , 2005
I've always been uncomfortable with my press coverage as certain aspects of the work made it attract populist tabloid journalism. In more recent years everyone is a bit more media savy. This article from the Daily Star is a good example. It's a cool photo with an article that's mostly bullshit.
Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth 2021
As with all the other vehicles in the series ‘Landscape, Seascape, Skyscape, Escape’ the hovercraft features in the performance lecture of the same name. In the lecture I go into more depth about the relationship of the work to failure and landscape. How the flat featureless landscape of of Hull and North Humberside had a habit of amplifying my sense of isolation and loneliness when I was sent there for three years to study art.
In 2020 I was invited to be part of an exhibition called ‘The Crooked Path’ at Levinsky gallery, University of Plymouth. The exhibition was to explore the relationship between art and failure- something I felt I was an expert at!
I proposed to revisit ‘Seascape Escape No.2’ with a view to bringing more of the narrative surrounding the hovercraft into the gallery with an emphasis on failure. I felt that technology and attitudes had moved on sufficiently to allow me to effectively bring elements of the performance lecture into a gallery context. I intended to reuse the plastic bottles that had previously been used as kind of light boxes on the floor and devise ways of putting films in them instead of just still images. The plan was to tell parts of the story so that together they made quite a complex/in depth narrative.
Having made several pieces the show was unfortunately cancelled. Ironic considering the show was about failure!
The following are some rough images and films in my studio of some of the pieces that were completed before the work was halted.
In 2020 I was invited to be part of an exhibition called ‘The Crooked Path’ at Levinsky gallery, University of Plymouth. The exhibition was to explore the relationship between art and failure- something I felt I was an expert at!
I proposed to revisit ‘Seascape Escape No.2’ with a view to bringing more of the narrative surrounding the hovercraft into the gallery with an emphasis on failure. I felt that technology and attitudes had moved on sufficiently to allow me to effectively bring elements of the performance lecture into a gallery context. I intended to reuse the plastic bottles that had previously been used as kind of light boxes on the floor and devise ways of putting films in them instead of just still images. The plan was to tell parts of the story so that together they made quite a complex/in depth narrative.
Having made several pieces the show was unfortunately cancelled. Ironic considering the show was about failure!
The following are some rough images and films in my studio of some of the pieces that were completed before the work was halted.
The original toy boat after it was found washed up on the beach.
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Bottle, projector, vice and replica toy boat.
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An interesting tangent to the story about the hovercraft is this toy wooden boat. It was one of a series of 9 similar boats that I made myself. I put names and addresses on each boat and sent them off down the river Humber. Two years later whilst collecting plastic bottles on the beach to make the hovercraft I found it again. The story is told via a series of short texts plus film and images projected into the 5 litre plastic bottle. A mirror bounces the projection from the neck of the bottle onto the side. The projector is held in place by a small vice attached to a 'facsimile' of the original toy boat (The original toy boat was given to the girlfriend in the story long ago). As with all the other plastic bottles it was to be placed on the floor in the same room as the hovercraft. Each one has a light source to draw you to it, the ones with films in have movement sensors to trigger the film.
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This film shows how the projection looks inside
the bottle. (38 secs.) |
This film shows the whole film that is projected
into the bottle (5 mins. 36 sec's) |
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Some of the bottles were simple text pieces lit by a single light bulb. This one talks about the college van and trailer we were able to use to transport the hovercraft. It's really a segue to mention the sad irony that the art college I was trying to escape from doesn't exist anymore.
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Film 2 mins. 39 secs.
As well as my own personal failings the plan was to bring the hovercraft and plastic into the context of environmental failings generally. With this piece a toy plastic elephant balancing on a toy hovercraft has a frame work on its back that supports a small Tesco’s carrier bag. This becomes the projection screen. In another plastic container on the floor some more toy elephants hold the projector.
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Film 1 min.
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I found an old interview on local television (BBC Look North, Calender News) from 1991. Its interesting for me becasue it manages to convey the passage of time which I thought was an important thing to acknowledge in this piece of work. The television has been dismantled and fits inside a plastic bottle. In the space at the bottom of the bottle there are some model camera men. The space looks like a TV studio. On the table is a model plastic bottle being filmed.