Some of the best public art in the city is being mounted on the plazas of the new convention centre. The latest: Doug Coupland’s Digital Orca.
Yup, that Doug Coupland.
Like Jeff Koons, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what kind of statement Coupland intends – but there’s no doubt that people find the work accessible and fun.
I came across it for the first time this week – the day after a gray whale was discovered in False Creek. (One theory has it that the new Habitat Island constructed as part of the Olympic Village has generated so much new sea life that it’s attracting species never seen before in recent times.)
Like Khenko, the Great Blue Heron – Doug Taylor’s animated sculpture in George Wainborn Park -maybe Digital Orca can be taken as a celebration of the renewal of our waters.
I believe i have seen the same at Legoland…
Renewal of our waters, maybe. But I kind of think of it as a statement on how we’ve begun to see everything in the world through a technological lense. I’m probably reading too much into it, though, but that’s the wonderful thing about art: it can mean whatever I want it to.
Also, very bizarre. But it works. Thanks for the post.
If you have seen the excellent movie about Coupland “Souvenir of Canada” from a few years back, you’ll recall how important toys, assorted bric a brac, tins of soup etc. that resonate from his childhood are to his art (at least at that time). A lego orca fits in quite nicely with the sensibility he revealed in the film.