for details contact co-ordinator Alison Chisholm, tel 0131 529 3682 The Travelling Gallery, the Edinburgh City Council exhibition bus which brings contemporary art to parts of Scotland that static galleries cannot reach, is on the road again with Message Sent ...

r-indent = This particular show could also have been called “I’m in an Art Gallery!” as it deals with various systems of communication, ranging from the most primitive telephones (two cans connected by a string) to e-mail messaging and mobile ring tones.

At one of the stopovers in Glasgow, outside Scotstoun Leisure Centre, three P6 groups from Scotstoun Primary boarded the double-decker bus with their teachers for the free show. If Gary Bell, an experienced Travelling Gallery driver and exhibition interpreter, hadn’t been there to guide them around (or if they hadn’t read through the free exhibition catalogue first), the visitors would have had a hard time figuring it out. As he says: “Message Sent I is a strange kind of art.”

This exhibition is not concerned with aesthetics of traditional shows, featuring drawings, paintings and sculpture, but with ideas, some of them serious, some of them light hearted. “The artists have put a lot of thought into these pieces,” says Gary, “and they want you to think about things; about communication and how it has changed.”

The children, who were attending complementary workshops later that day, were intrigued by a unicycle that has been bolted to the wall and bears the message: “The longest journey in the world is from the light switch to my bed.” The message on the cycle had been used on a fax machine art work that had started in Glasgow and gone around the world on the eve of 2000, stopping at several points including India before returning to its source.

Commenting on two framed pieces of graph paper covered in red scribbles, the P6 pupils thought: “It looks like a mess.” The scribbles are based on e-mail messages sent between the artist and her boyfriend but almost all the words have been obliterated. Gary’s colleague, Jo Arksay, suggested that this could be a good way to release our innermost thoughts and emotions without revealing them to anyone else.

Glasgow-trained artist Judy Spark has taken photographs of mobile telephone transmitters in Stirling and Glasgow that are disguised as trees and street lamps, the message being that most of us haven’t got a clue what these masts look like or where they are.

Her catalogue entry adds: “Presently, technology is advancing so fast that our newest developments are in use before we are sure of any effects they may be having upon us, our children and the environment of the future.”

Other works sparked off discussions about brand name logos, Internet relationships and how we answer the telephone these days. “People used to say who they were and, sometimes, what their number was,” Gary pointed out. “But you don’t need to now,” said some of the children, “because the number comes up on your mobile.” “And you can choose not to answer it if you don’t want to speak to the person who’s phoning,” added another.

Deedee Cuddihy