MY PROPOSAL FOR AN ART INSTALLATION
Following a business meeting at Tall Sherry Hall (TSH) on Sunday 01 February 2026,
[regarding Minute 16/26, which agreed to support in principle my proposal for an art installation in the TSH garden that would be related to my existing concern, recognised by the TSH board in 2017, regarding the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the future of humanity]
it was agreed that I should prepare and present to you this document which we could discuss before discerning a way forward.
Background
The nature and potential impact of AI is well documented elsewhere, so (for the purposes of this document) I don’t think that I need to add here anything further - although you may click on this link to read some of my previous reasoning.
Since the 1980s, I’d become increasingly concerned about AI. And through prayerful discernment, the conclusion I’d eventually come to was that every faith community and tradition in this city and beyond needed to understand that unless we’re endeavouring to seat, maintain & promote humanity [that of God, our species & its virtues] at the heart of the internet, then something else will be sitting in our place, and it will imagine nothing in the universe greater than itself.
At times, I haven’t known what to do with that conclusion and, for a long time, I was toying with the idea that this concern of mine might be more effectively conveyed through creative writing. And then one of our counsellors suggested to me that my approach might work better in the form of some kind of publicly visible art installation.
Proposal
So, this proposal outlines some of my initial ideas for that installation whilst I’m both hoping and expecting that these designs will evolve as others become increasingly involved.
Also, in tandem with that art & design and in collaboration with the IFCG, one or more meetings may be held at TSH and elsewhere to discuss and debate all our concerns regarding AI.
Our target date should be no later than Sunday, December 20th for the installation of this project to be visible on the front of TSH when the Brighton & Hove children’s Burning the Clocks parade is passing by, on Monday the 21st of December, this year. * And then our installation might stay there in that place until the end of January.
1. I imagine two thin scaffolding towers ** secured to the building, one at each corner of TSH’s front portico.
2. Attached to and between those towers - and in front of TSH’s three upper front windows - there could be a large and circular, cathedral-rose-window-type design of geometric shapes representing the internet with that ‘love heart’ (designed by our children) at its centre.
That whole design could be printed on -or incorporated into- some large translucent material stretched between those two towers and illuminated with LED lights. A similar material was used for several years to cover the scaffolding around St Peters’ Church in York Place.
3. Beneath that “cathedral window", on a strip above our TSH entrance, we could mount a digital scrolling sign which would convey various messages (such as that message above, regarding our maintenance of humanity at the heart of the internet) as well as information similar to that which can be seen by anyone standing outside the Cardinal Place shopping centre, across the road from Victoria Station in central London, where scrolling messages continually tell people what the time is; and how many hours there are remaining until [for instance] New Year’s Eve - followed by some random fact specifying what can happen or be achieved in that precise number of hours.
4. For the duration of this project, smaller illuminated sculptures by various artists and creative souls (both young and old) could be positioned around our garden.
5. In some space within TSH, I’d like to place two illuminated screens.
In some of that creative writing of mine, some years ago, I’d wondered what could possibly be left behind (maybe inscribed upon something like a DVD and buried in a time-capsule) that would convey some quintessential essence of our humanity to the representative of some interested but utterly alien civilisation which might visit this lonely planet in some distant future, long after the total extinction of all Life on Earth.
And (since humanity and being human has always been an experience of both the happy and the sad) I’d imagined that the person who’d been attempting to save an essence of humanity on that precious DVD - in some final act before the end of their world, and whilst trying to select something profoundly revealing about humanity - had only been able to save [just like some guest on Desert Island Discs] just two short videos.
One video might convey something of our essence in that single teardrop from Sinéad O'Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U. And the other might convey that infectious depiction of humanity whilst dancing along to Happy by Pharrell Williams. And, if you’ve ever watched both of those two videos on YouTube, then you’ll understand what I mean.
Like I said: Those are just my initial ideas.
Plan
So, where could and should we go from here?