instructions for the assembly of this work of art & design

Essentially, every cathedral is the position in which an authority is seated.

In this cathedral (built as a purposeful installation of expeditionary art & design) a stylised heart representing humanity will sit at the centre of a network of geometric shapes representing the internet.

The intention is for this work of art & design to be displayed in an outside space.

It has been agreed in principle that the first placement of this installation shall be in a position facing the street, outside Friends' Meeting House (FMH) in Ship Street, Brighton.

The installation’s primary purpose is to attract attention, so that anyone looking for an explanation of its meaning will see that its design sits beneath the address [URL & QR code] of an online page.

www.theheartoftheinternet.com

That online page will hopefully present a clear & concise statement of our concern for humanity in the light of what we are given to understand about AI.  It would also list any initiative (such as letstalkai.org.uk) which might be promoted through FMH later this year.

The www.theheartoftheinternet.com URL has already been purchased.

Plan

This installation is currently scheduled to be in place outside FMH from December 2026 until January 2027 - which would hopefully coincide with the annual, Burning the Clocks children's parade which usually passes along Ship Street on that evening of the Winter Solstice.

In May 2026, a plan for my AI Concern, Art & Design Installation was presented to the committee at FMH which has an oversight role regarding this first placement.

Brighton Meeting has been supporting that concern since 2017.

I repeated that I do not intend to ask Meeting to contribute towards the financial cost of this project.

However, the plan presented in May had to be revised since I discovered trucks parked in the Ship Street loading bay would substantially obscure views of an installation in that position.  

So, in June, that committee will be presented with this new design.

The following illustration is a rough mock-up of how the installation might appear.

The design shown above and described below has three main features (subject to further revision if alterations become necessary).

1.   A design printed on a banner (made of a mesh material that doesn’t excessively billow in the wind) would depict a stylised heart representing humanity sitting at the centre of a network of geometric shapes representing the internet.

The banner will be at least 3.5 metres wide and 2 metres high, attached to a frame that will stand on the roof of the FHM portico.  A local company supplies banners of this type which can be printed and attached to a standard Heras fence panel, but it might be possible to commission someone to construct a frame in sections that could afterwards be easily dismantled and stored. 

The frame holding the banner could be kept in place with clamps and poles attached to four or five horizontal scaffolding anchors known as reveal ties, firmly fitted (temporarily and without the need for any new holes to be drilled) between the outside vertical insets of the FMH balcony windows.

Alternatively, there are drainpipes (although one would be more difficult to reach) to which a set of straps might be attached that would hold the frame in place against the wall and middle window.

Two or three 150-watt floodlights will be positioned on the portico roof in front of the banner, to illuminate and allow its content to remain discernible after dark.  A timer on their circuit would switch those lights on and off in accordance with our requirements.  Electrical wiring would run down to the plug socket, which is below, on an outside wall of FMH.

2.   The website address (URL & QR code) will appear in a block above and at least as wide as the banner.  The URL and the QR code might be printed, or they might be put together with LED lights - but, either way, it must be possible for that address to be easily read from the other side of Ship Street. 

3.   Behind the left and the right balcony windows, a red symbolic heart shaped light controlled by a timer will gently flash on and off.  It is a widely used method which should attract the attention of people passing by who might not otherwise have bothered to turn their gaze towards this installation.  Those red lights might be part of a pair of LED neon sculptures, which can be made by a company in Shoreham, and they would copy (but make more colourful) a few shapes from the main graphic.

In addition to the main installation, a digital A board somewhere at ground level will present concise pieces of information such as this concern’s URL and its QR code; a few short descriptions of our concern - in twelve words or less; announcements for any associated events; an animated graphic revealing the heart seated at a centre of geometric compositions; and maybe some quirky takes on the day’s time & date similar to the way they are presented in Cardinal Place on Victoria Street in central London .

Associated events that could be organised to take place at FMH while the installation is in place might include exhibitions, presentations, meetings and workshops in collaboration with (for example) the University of Sheffield’s digitalgood.net & letstalkai.org.uk initiatives; the Woodbrooke Ai course; the supporters of a similar XR concern; and the IFCG.

From what I've understood from city council guidelines, temporary art installations do not need the permission which a commercial property would require before installing something like a neon shop sign.

Illustrated below are sketches for a geodesic sphere (and its transformation) that would reveal the heart at its centre.

Next steps

I’m gathering quotes to gauge the likely cost of each element needed to build this art & design installation.

I’m hoping there are people who will be happy to offer useful advice before I begin approaching the experts I’ll need to be paying for stuff like carpentry and short pieces of simple CGI animation.

Oversight committee members might forward further questions or helpful suggestions to me (via email) before its next scheduled meeting in July.

This next set of images (below) are not a part of the current plan but I'm still using them to visualise the potential of certain aspects.

In a variety of contexts, that simple and universally recognised symbol in the stylised shape of a heart is being presented to me (quite literally on at least one occasion) with increasing regularity.  But I guess a psychiatrist might say this perception suggests I'm growing increasingly susceptible to a very specific idea of reference.

And, back in the 1990s, I’d found the original image of that geodesic sphere amongst a collection of various usable shapes (in one of Microsoft's Windows 95 utilities) whilst searching for some combination of shapes we could use to make a logo that would symbolise our new network of constructive inter-faith dialogue.

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