'Car crash' artist pleased with public's response

ONE of the artists behind a piece of art which sparked a rescue bid has spoken of his delight that it connected with the public.

In Saturday's Sentinel, Andrew Branscombe from Hanley's AirSpace gallery, described how two men broke into a 'crashed' car after hearing voices from inside the boot.

But the car, left outside Staffordshire University's film theatre, was actually a piece of installation art by Glasgow-based Littlewhitehead as part of the Conjunc+ion08 art festival.

And the voices calling for help were recorded on an audio track placed inside the boot.

Artist Blake Whitehead, who works in partnership with 28-year-old Craig Little, said the piece was designed to create a sense of "fake reality".

He said: "I think it is pretty funny and it is nice that it has provoked that.

"We always try to work with quite a bit of realism because we are quite despondent with the abstract, which we find that the general public can't relate to that well.

"But if you use images people are used to, such as a crash, people automatically understand and can get their own interpretation out of it."