Artist decides to pull the plug.A PERFORMANCE artist has done a U-turn on a plan to waste 100m litres of water after he received death threats. Mark McGowan's latest wacky work was to consist of leaving six household taps running for a year in the name of art. But as word of his stunt leaked out on the internet, the Internet, the, international computer network linking together thousands of individual networks at military and government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, industrial and financial corporations of all sizes, and commercial enterprises south London South London (known colloquially as South of the River) is the area of London south of the River Thames. Some neighbourhoods north of the Thames have South London postal codes (SW), but these neighbourhoods are classified as West or Central London. artist was flooded with a torrent See BitTorrent. torrent - BitTorrent of abusive emails and telephone calls. "I've been deluged with angry messages and I've had to call it off," the artist said today. I started to feel very threatened and a lot of people called into question my artistic abilities - but it was definitely art." Mr McGowan styles himself as an artist highlighting social issues. He argues that his tap running work would have raised awareness about the amount of water the public, and the water industry, squanders. It would effectively "hold a mirror up" to society, he said. Last year, he clashed with Thames Water Thames Water, known originally as the Thames Water Authority and after privatization as Thames Water Utilities Limited, is the utility responsible for water supply and waste water treatment in parts of Greater London, Surrey, Wiltshire, and the Thames Valley in the when he tried to leave a single tap running at a south London art gallery for a year. A threat of legal action forced him into turning it off 11 months early - after using 800,000 litres. His latest work, involving six taps, was to have been carried out at secret locations in the capital so the company could not shut him down. A Thames Water spokesman said: "We're very pleased he has decided not to go ahead with it." Mr McGowan will now be focusing his artistic endeavours elsewhere. His next work this summer will be to place a door and four bricks on the ground and somersault over them repeatedly - for 40 miles. |
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