The sculpture controlled by bees: Wolfgang Buttress's Hive

Its 170,000 pieces of aluminium are a hive-like structure of latticework, controlled by the vibrations of honeybees in a hive at Kew that is connected to the sculpture

Alison Benjamin

Friday 17 June 201612.41 BSTLast modified on Friday 17 June 201615.43 BST

“My approach to a sculpture seeks to frame nature so one can experience it more intimately,” says British artist Wolfgang Buttress, whose 17-metre high Hive installation opens at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, in London on Saturday. “I want visitors to feel enveloped, wrapped-up and involved in the experience, rather than adopting the position of an external observer.”

Its 170,000 pieces of aluminium, suspended from the ground, appear as a twisting swarm of bees from afar, but as you come closer it becomes a hive-like structure of latticework whose low humming sound and hundreds of flickering LED lights draws you in to a multi-sensory instillation. The intensity of sound and light is controlled by the vibrations of honeybees in an actual hive at Kew that is connected to the sculpture.

Honeybees communicate primarily with each other through vibrations. By biting a wooden stick connected to a conductor, visitors to the Hive can get a sense of four types of vibrational messages through the bones in their head. These include the tooting and quacking signals that virgin queen bees make when they challenge each other in a display of strength to determine who will be the queen of the hive; begging, when a bee requests food from another another; and the waggle dance which communicates the location of a good food source.

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Loch Ness Monster sculpture mysteriously appears in Chippewa River

It's an enchanting mystery and point of conversation for the local arts community, but the law sees a sculpture of a friendly monster to be an obstruction in the Chippewa River.

Appearing in the past couple of weeks, the sculpture is in the shape of the Loch Ness Monster, a creature nicknamed Nessie that is reputed to live in a deep Scottish lake.

The sculpted Eau Claire version pokes above the river just north of the Madison Street bridge in Eau Claire.

"It's happening more and more, guerilla installations like this," said Jason Lanka, a UW-Eau Claire assistant art professor. "It's a crossover from a graffiti tradition."

While spontaneous public art displays are more common in metropolitan areas with bigger art communities, Lanka said they are an easy way for artists anywhere to spur conversation about their work.

However, the state Department of Natural Resources views the sculpture as an illegal obstruction in the river.

Continued: http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/front_page/article_d64424ba-9411-11e1-9d68-001a4bcf887a.html