His Majesty the King Carl XVI Gustaf’s Monument to the Environment: A Digital Monument For the Future

Abstract

In June 1994, His Majesty the King Carl XVI Gustaf’s The Environmental Monument was inaugurated in Stockholm. The Environmental Monument was not created for commemorative reasons; instead, it was meant to disseminate information about the environment and function as a reminder of our common responsibility for the present and future environment. The Environmental Monument signifies a major shift in thinking about monumentality. This article examines this shift by exploring how The Environmental Monument relates to other monuments and further sets out to place The Environmental Monument in an art-historical context. By describing and analyzing the history of The Environmental Monument, and by examining the physical monument, including its location, form, and material, as well as its function, this article shows that the monument both aligns with and simultaneously contradicts historical and contemporary paradigms of monuments, which makes it difficult to characterize. Finally, this article introduces the term “digital monument” to characterize a type of public art that emerged in the mid-1990s and consisted of physical monuments made of enduring material and incorporating interactive digital technology.

Is this an attempt at postmodern architecture? No, it is His Majesty the King Carl XVI Gustaf who ordered the erection, in the year 1994. How so! Does the King of Sweden, a modest monarch who does his shopping like any other citizen, suddenly think he is Ramses II, Mohammed Ali or Louis-Philippe, to the point of erecting obelisks in honor of the sun? Does he think he is a pharaoh? Not at all. If His Majesty has got it into his head to reinvent the obelisk, it is in honor of Science, with a capital S, and more particularly to make a sacrifice to the new deities of anti-pollution…

–Bruno Latour, “Les monoliths de Stockholm.”

The French philosopher Bruno Latour’s encounter with His Majesty the King Carl XVI Gustaf’s monument to the environment (hereinafter The Environmental Monument) in central Stockholm (Fig. 1), leaves him both confused and amused.¹ What kind of objects are these obelisks with flashing light strings moving up and down along the sides situated in the Swedish capital? How should they be understood from an art-historical perspective? The Environmental Monument consists of two five-meter high grey terrazzo obelisks, with green, yellow, blue, and red interactive flashing light strands on the sides, as well as plaques of what appears to be engraved brass. The monument was originally erected in a square reminiscent of a traditional site for monuments, at the end of a bay in central Stockholm, but was later moved to a less central location along the quay.

Figure 1. Christopher Garney, The Environmental Monument, Strandvägskajen, Stockholm, 1994. Terrazzo concrete, engraved brass, plexiglas, lamps, interactive digital technology; approximately 500 × 125 × 125 cm (measured at the step). Photo by the author.

The Environmental Monument was designed by Christopher Garney, at the time a student at the University of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack) in Sweden, and was the winning proposal in a competition held at the art school. In early 1993, “His Majesty the King’s Environmental Information—A Competition of Ideas” (HM Konungens Miljöinformation. En idétävling) was launched at the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Sweden. As the name of the competition suggests, the original idea for it came from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, in order to disseminate information about the environment. The previous year, the king, known for his keen interest in environmental issues, had suggested that somewhere in Stockholm there should be an opportunity for the public to obtain information on the current state of the air and water in the city and for this purpose he donated half a million Swedish kronor (approximately $50,000). This sum was the surplus from a charity concert that raised money for the environment held at the Royal Palace of Stockholm in the summer of 1992, and it was used as the foundation to finance “a permanent information board or sculpture that could provide the capital’s residents and visitors with interesting data on the quality of the city’s air and water on a daily basis.”² Plaques at the base of each obelisk identify them as a monument (Fig. 2). Latour’s reaction, however, demonstrates that it may not be that simple. Judging from his quote above, they seem difficult to categorize from an art-historical perspective. This article draws on Latour’s difficulties in characterizing the obelisks to discuss how they relate to concepts of monumentality.

Figure 2. Christopher Garney, The Environmental Monument, Strandvägskajen, Stockholm, 1994. Detail, plaque in engraved brass, 70 × 55 cm. Photo by the author.

The Environmental Monument represents a type of public art that emerged in the mid-1990s, which was big in size and made of enduring material such as bronze, stone, and cast iron, and incorporated digital technology. The commission to build it was usually surrounded by grand ventures engaging the business sector, the state, as well as local authorities. Although it was intended to last forever, it often ended in a different way than expected.³ In this article, I use the term digital monuments to characterize this art.⁴ Digital refers to digital technology in the form of hardware and software. Monument refers to a physical monument and is used in accordance with Alois Riegl’s definition; that is, “[A] human creation, erected for the specific purpose of keeping single human deeds or events (or a combination thereof) alive in the minds of future generations.”⁵ I argue that The Environmental Monument signifies a major shift in thinking about monumentality, both in terms of its materials and the shifted perspective that the monument is not related to memory and instead records the present to signal possible futures. This may be one reason why Latour finds it so difficult to characterize the obelisks.

Following Riegl, monuments are mainly characterized by their commemorative value.⁶ A century after he proposed this definition, the commemorative value of monuments is still central to their characterization.⁷ Material and function may vary, however, and different monuments approach their task of remembering in various ways.⁸ What about monuments that are not built due to historical reasons? Or, what about monuments that include ephemeral material that does not last as long as bronze or stone? Do these monuments also have a commemorative value? Are they monuments at all? These are crucial questions brought up by The Environmental Monument. Despite an ongoing interest in monuments,⁹ and despite that The Environmental Monument emerged at a time when digital art was gaining ground, research on this kind of physical digital monument is scarce.¹⁰

At first glance, The Environmental Monument seems in some respects consistent with both historical monuments and more contemporary monuments from the late twentieth century onward. However, a closer analysis shows that it is also at odds with them. This makes it difficult to characterize, as does its digital interactive technology. This means that the monument shares similarities with the wide range of mediated experiences in both public and communal spaces that Anne Balsamo has identified as an emergent cultural form and refers to as “public interactives.”¹¹ Through the term, she draws attention to the boundaries between interactive art and commercial interactive products are sometimes blurred and thus difficult to identify. A crucial part of public interactives is that they use already familiar cultural forms of symbolic meaning making while creating new ones, which Balsamo identifies as a “double logic of reproduction and replication.”¹²

Drawing on a body of literature that focuses on the characterization of monuments in general and ancient Egyptian obelisks in particular, this article sets out to place The Environmental Monument in an art-historical context. Methodologically, I examine the shift in thinking of monumentality as detailed above by describing and analyzing the history of The Environmental Monument, and by examining the physical monument, including its location, form, and material, as well as its function, in comparison with the characteristics of other monuments.¹³ This article thus contributes to knowledge on the notion of what is really a monument today. The Environmental Monument has been studied in situ.

MONUMENTS IN A SWEDISH CONTEXT

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, Europe as well as the United States witnessed a boom in monument building. As newly unified nations, Germany and Italy in particular are among the most illustrative examples of European countries erecting monuments in order to draw together the nation-state during this period. Due to a longer period of a relatively cohesive nation-state, the situation in Sweden was different. Nonetheless, the inauguration of statues in Sweden was still an important part of reinforcing the concept of nationhood during the nineteenth century.¹⁴ Even in the postwar period, the focus on monuments in Sweden differs somewhat from other European countries: in contrast to the latter, relatively few monuments were erected. In addition, the monuments that were built were characterized by a different form and content. They were horizontal instead of vertical, and they represented the collective rather than the individual.¹⁵ Furthermore, in comparison to public art in general, monuments do not seem to have a prominent position within contemporary art in Sweden.¹⁶

The Environmental Monument came about at a time when the changing role of monuments in a transitional world received increased attention, as eloquently captured by Marianne Doezema in her 1977 essay, “The Public Monument in Tradition and Transition.”¹⁷ By focusing on the form and function of monuments, Doezema, and others who have followed suit, show that monuments in Europe and the United States have undergone a thorough change since their heyday in the nineteenth century. Traditional European and North American monuments were typically intended to recall the memory of a historical individual (such as a wartime hero or king), event, or idea, and were made of enduring material such as bronze or stone, and symbolized the nation-state. However, the monuments erected since the 1960s tend, to a greater extent, to be neither monumental nor didactic. Furthermore, these monuments have a different relation to the past as well as to the audience, and their materials may vary.¹⁸ As James E. Young shows, while introducing so-called “counter monuments,” some of them are even created in direct opposition to the very notion of being a monument.¹⁹

Monuments are symbols of the time they are supposed to commemorate. Moreover, they are also symbols of the time in which they are commissioned and created. They evoke aspects of a particular economic, political, and cultural situation.²⁰ As for obelisks, Brian A. Curran et al. even describe them as a “Rorschach’s test for civilizations.”²¹ Constructed in 1994, the obelisks were erected at the dawn of the so-called dotcom bubble. This was an era characterized by visions of the rise and rapid development of information technology that took place from around the first half of the 1990s to just after the turn of the millennium.²² The emerging information technology was closely aligned with visions of improvement and hopes about the future. Sweden was no exception, and it was one of the leading countries in the development of information technology (IT).²³ During this era, the political climate in Sweden was permeated by visions of turning the country into a leading IT nation.²⁴ During the following years, these visions came to include a political focus on innovation, creativity, and digitalization.

The venture of The Environmental Monument aligned well with the Swedish nation’s contemporary visions related to science and technology, and specifically IT.²⁵ The very same year that the obelisks were inaugurated a discursive shift took place that resulted in the visionary view on IT that characterized the information society.²⁶ From an art-historical perspective, The Environmental Monument came about at a time when digital art gained momentum, when the relationship between monuments and public sculpture was becoming increasingly blurred, and when public art was an important part of the branding of cities.²⁷

THE HISTORY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MONUMENT

The competition leading to the monument was organized in cooperation with the municipally owned water and waste company, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall. It was aimed at the students of the University of Arts, Crafts and Design, and included a jury of representatives from the City of Stockholm and the University of Arts, Crafts and Design. The following people were included: the deputy mayor of Stockholm, Monica Andersson; the principal, Inez Svensson; and Professor Dan Jonsson from the University of Arts, Crafts and Design, with Lars Romare acting as secretary.²⁸ According to the guidelines, the proposals should make use of data from environmental monitoring in Stockholm,²⁹ the design should “include the displaying in an eye-catching way,”³⁰ and the audience was supposed to comprise both the citizens of and visitors to Stockholm.

The competition was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, twenty-five proposals were received, from which the king and the jury selected three finalists.³¹ In the second phase, the finalists were given the opportunity to develop their proposals with the help of feedback from the jury, the City Planning Department, the Environmental Administration, and Stockholm Vatten och Avfall. Before reaching its final decision, the jury had to make an overall assessment based on “aesthetics, technology and feasibility.”³² The winning proposal was announced in July 1993.

Completion lasted nine months and included the securing of funding and setting up contracts, as well as design, review, fabrication, groundworks, assembly, trimming, and the production of information materials and signage.³³

The Environmental Monument was inaugurated by the King on June 16, 1994. Photographs and media reports of the unveiling of the monument show that it was a thoroughly lavish ceremony. As seen in a photograph in an article in Vatten Trycket, the internal magazine of Stockholm Vatten och Avfall, it included both an orchestra and a temporary grandstand with seating (Fig. 3).³⁴ The latter was presumably intended for distinguished guests, to judge by the way the people in the grandstand were dressed. There was also a barrier separating the public from the more high-profile guests. In addition to the king; the deputy mayor, Mats Hulth; and the chairman of the City Council, Margareta Schwartz, the media, the public, and collaborative partners also attended the opening ceremony. The Environmental Monument was thus surrounded by similar pomp and circumstance to that which characterized the ceremonial inaugurations of monuments in Sweden in the nineteenth century.³⁵

Figure 3. Inauguration of His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf’s monument to the environment, The Environmental Monument. June 16, 1994. Vatten Trycket 3 (July 1994): 3. Photo credit Thomas Henriksson. Courtesy of Stockholm Vatten och Avfall.

A PLACE FOR A MONUMENT

The monument was erected in Raoul Wallenberg Square next to Nybroviken, an inlet of Lake Mälaren, in Stockholm. The site could be described as a traditional nineteenth-century site for monuments. The square is located in central Stockholm, opposite the Royal Dramatic Theatre, at the end of the inlet where many of the city’s tourist boats depart (Fig. 4). Hence, it is passed daily by both the city’s residents and visitors, by foot, bicycle, public or private transport, or even by boat. Approaching the square from the water, the monument rose straight into view.

Figure 4. Leaflet produced by Stockholm Vatten och Avfall, “Hans Majestät Konungens Miljömonument,” 1994. Photo credit inside the leaflet Stockholm Vatten och Avfall. Courtesy of Stockholm Vatten och Avfall. Photo by the author.

The location was indeed important when it comes to The Environmental Monument. However, Raoul Wallenberg Square was not the only site discussed. The proposal for the location of the monument came from the City Planning Office. While agreeing that it was a suitable location, the jury emphasized that they would like to see the obelisks possibly relocated in the future to Kungsträdgården, a public park near the water and the Royal Palace.³⁶ In the artist’s original proposal, yet another central location near the water, Slussen, was suggested as fitting for the obelisks.³⁷ As with Raoul Wallenberg Square, both Slussen and Kungsträdgården could also be characterized as locations typical for a nineteenth-century monument.

However, due to a restoration of the square beginning in the late 1990s, it did not take too long before the monument was moved to a less eye-catching place to make room for a monument to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Today the obelisks stand on Strandsvägskajen, about 500 meters from their original location. Instead of being the center of attention, both from land and water, their current location has more the character of a place by which one passes. In addition, they now have to compete for attention with boats, signs, flagpoles, street lamps, garbage cans, and other objects on the quayside. Thus, although tourists and Stockholmers alike do stop by the monument, it is no longer the focus of attention as it was in the large open square.

A HISTORICAL FORM

The jury’s final statement of July 6, 1993, calls attention to the basic elements of the monument, namely, its location, form, material, and function:

With his two obelisks, Garney moderately combines a traditional, tried and tested design language with modern technology. The cement mosaic, terrazzo, gives the obelisks their solid, durable stone character, while this technique offers great possibilities for designing the details that will reveal the environmental information. These two royal environmental lighthouses, which can be seen from both land and water, have the potential to become enduring symbols of a good air and water environment in the capital.³⁸

The Environmental Monument is built in a traditional form, namely the obelisk. It consists of two almost five-meter-high terrazzo concrete obelisks a few meters apart, with interactive vertical, wave-shaped strands of light on the sides. Each obelisk is placed on a plate, which in turn rests on a base. Below the base and closest to the ground is a step in the same shape as the plate, albeit slightly larger. Each side of the base contains a plaque with information in English and Swedish regarding its purpose, its owners, and funders (Fig. 2). A smaller, rectangular plaque is placed on top of each side of the base, including information in English and Swedish regarding what the light strands on that particular side of the obelisk represent (Fig. 5). Annual changes are updated on the plaques.

Figure 5. Christopher Garney, The Environmental Monument, Strandvägskajen, Stockholm, 1994. Detail, plaque in engraved brass, 60 × 10 cm. Photo by the author.

The obelisks show the air and water quality of Stockholm. While standing with your back to the water, facing the obelisks, the air obelisk is on the left-hand side and the water obelisk to the right. The light strands on each side of the obelisks display a computer-controlled, interactive light display that provides continuous information regarding the quality of the Swedish capital’s air and water. The values are updated every hour, some even every sixth minute.³⁹ The technical equipment is stored in the bases and the data are transferred via the telecommunications network. The air obelisk receives its data from The Environmental Administration and its light strands, one on each side in red, yellow, and blue, and a fourth that gradually changes from yellow to orange and red, show wind speed, humidity, and the concentration of particles and nitrogen dioxide in Stockholm’s inner city. The water obelisk receives its data from Stockholm Vatten och Avfall and the Port of Stockholm and shows the wastewater flow, and the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in the wastewater in Stockholm. Two of the water obelisk’s sides contain single light strands in blue, and the other two sides two double, parallel ones in the complementary colors of red and green.

The monument shares a number of features with ancient Egyptian obelisks, as characterized by Curran et al. in Obelisk: A History.⁴⁰ Apart from the obvious similarity with the form, other features that make them resemble ancient Egyptian obelisks are the inscriptions on the sides that are reminiscent of hieroglyphs, that they were erected on the king’s initiative, bear the donor’s name, and are a pair. Nonetheless, they are also at odds with these features. Unlike the ancient Egyptian obelisks, the obelisks of The Environmental Monument are not monoliths, but hollow. Nor should the information on the sides be read from top to bottom, as with hieroglyphics; instead, it runs from the bottom up.

Being hollow, on the other hand, means that they bear resemblance to obelisks from another time and place than the ancient Egyptian ones, namely American nineteenth-century obelisks. John Zukowsky shows that these obelisks are different from their predecessors. He argues they draw on an already existing historical form, but developed their own form, typical of their time. Some of them were equipped with staircases or elevators and were used as observation towers.⁴¹ Although the interior of the 1990s obelisks in Stockholm do not include a staircase or an elevator through which the guards could climb up in the tower,⁴² they are symbolically related. Instead, technological equipment is located inside the base of the monument and it climbs up the sides of the obelisks.

Historically, obelisks represent the sun’s rays. As monuments, they therefore had a strong symbolic value as they literally pierced the sky, connecting the heaven and the earth.⁴³ The Environmental Monument alludes to this meaning. Its relationship with the environment and its representations of air and water can be interpreted as a symbolic connection between the heaven and the earth, like the ancient Egyptian obelisks. At the artist’s suggestion, the obelisk form was also chosen because of its connotations.⁴⁴ However, considering that the monument is not a monolith but hollow, and that the light strands along the sides do not read from top to bottom but the other way around, it could mean that, even though the monument is based on and looks like a pair of ancient Egyptian obelisks, these deviations from the original form contribute to problematizing its symbolic value.

ENDURING AND EPHEMERAL MATERIAL

It is not only the form that contributes to the significance of obelisks, but also their material. According to the artist’s original proposal, it was suggested that the obelisks be made of bronze or copper. The material was essentially proposed to be the same as in conventional monuments, and it was also chosen by the same criteria, durability.⁴⁵ Moreover, it was also proposed due to its aesthetic qualities: to build the obelisks in bronze or copper would make them symbolize scientific measuring instruments. The artist argued that as the air would eventually affect their surface, they would actually become measuring instruments in themselves. To emphasize further the symbolic similarity with scientific measuring instruments, it was also intended that they would be screwed together along the sides, although this did not happen.⁴⁶ Instead, the monument was built from other materials. The obelisks, the plates, the bases, and the steps are made of gray terrazzo concrete with small particles in different shades of gray and black, the plaques of what appears to be engraved brass, and the light strands consist of lights, plexiglas, and technological features hidden inside the base. The monument is thus made of a combination of enduring and ephemeral material. Terrazzo concrete is an enduring material. However, as it is mostly used for indoor architecture,⁴⁷ it is not a material usually associated with outdoor monuments such as the granite originally used for obelisks,⁴⁸ or bronze, iron, and marble. Hence, it could be argued that akin to how the deviation from the original form was interpreted as problematizing the symbolic value of the monument, the material used for The Environmental Monument could be said to problematize the apparent value and prestige of the monument. On the other hand, the material gives the impression that the obelisks, like the Egyptian ones, are monoliths. From that perspective, the use of the terrazzo concrete could be regarded as an innovation in the construction of outdoor monuments.

The ephemeral material consists of the information provided through the telecommunications network, the technological equipment inside the monument that transports the information, as well as the light strands on the sides that display the information. The fact that the strands of light move along the sides contributes to bringing the monument to life. In other words, while the monument has a clear solid form, being interactive makes it constantly changing. But this also exposes the vulnerability of the monument. Although the monument has been in use for almost thirty years, the durability of the lights and the technology that transmits the information to the obelisks cannot be compared to the durability of the terrazzo concrete or other enduring materials usually used for monuments. Thus, compared to monuments made completely in an enduring material, the ephemeral material makes the monument seem more fragile.⁴⁹ However, according to a leaflet produced by Stockholm Vatten och Avfall on the occasion of the inauguration, the goal of the competition was that it should result in a permanent object, and hence last forever.⁵⁰

The material of the Egyptian obelisks also contributed to their symbolic value. The pinnacles of Egyptian obelisks were usually covered in bronze, copper, or a mixture of gold and silver, electrum, to catch the sun’s rays.⁵¹ The top of The Environmental Monument was not. On the other hand, the lights running along the sides of these modern obelisks in Stockholm can be said to serve a similar function.

THE INFORMATIVE FUNCTION OF THE MONUMENT

Ever since the king launched the idea of what eventually became the obelisks, their purpose has been to inform. This means that the obelisks have a practical function. In comparison with ancient Egyptian obelisks, which had a religious function of connecting heaven and earth, this is a further distinguishing factor, as the latter, according to Curran et al., “have no practical function.”⁵² The most eye-catching way in which this is done is through the light strands winding up the sides. The similarity with color scales used to convey the results of scientific measurements of, for instance, the weather, suggests that it is a measurement of some kind. This further gives them a scientific character. However, without reading the plaques on the base, it is neither possible to know that they inform, nor the nature of the information.

The jury’s characterization of the obelisks as “environmental lighthouses,” as detailed above, emphasizes their role as objects of information.⁵³ Like a lighthouse, the monument forms a tall, slim object by the water that emits light. It lights up to show passing ships where land is found and thus helps them navigate. Hence, as a lighthouse informs, The Environmental Monument was originally placed in a central location on the quay, fully visible to approaching boats, and it communicates by means of colored lights moving along its sides. Like a lighthouse, the monument thus helps the public to navigate through the environmental information. A crucial aspect of interpreting the obelisks in terms of a lighthouse is that it includes digital interactive technology. Besides that it is technology that makes the monument’s lamps shine and flicker, thus making it visible from afar, it is also through the use of digital interactive technology in terms of the telecommunications network that the monument is provided with data in order for it to enlighten the public.

However, information was provided to the public not only through the monument itself but was also shared through oral and written sources. Ahead of the inauguration, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall produced a leaflet with information on the type of data displayed by the obelisks (Fig. 4).⁵⁴ Furthermore, according to the draft for the press release, the company was eager to interact with the public:

The Environmental Administration and Stockholm Vatten och Avfall sincerely hope that the monument will inspire the public to deepen their interest in environmental issues as well as to develop a longing for more information. Thus, we are prepared to the best of our ability in order to answer any questions that may arise in connection with this monument.⁵⁵

The obelisks were thus thought to encourage an increased interest in environmental issues among the Swedish capital’s citizens and visitors. This was further communicated by the monument. According to the inscription on the large plaques on the base, the monument was erected “as a reminder of our common responsibility for the present and future environment” (Fig. 2). The Environmental Monument did not originate in a past historical event, but in circumstances that were to take place in the future.⁵⁶

In August 2022, almost thirty years after its inauguration, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall once again called attention to the aim of the monument. This was connected to Stockholm hosting a new event focusing on water and climate issues, Stockholm H2O. However, this time it was not through a leaflet but their website, including contact information to an employee at Stockholm Vatten och Avfall who could answer questions about the monument. Although the monument now stands in a less prominent place, it is still in use according to its original purpose.⁵⁷

A DIGITAL MONUMENT COMMEMORATING THE FUTURE

In this article, I have examined His Majesty the King Carl XVI Gustaf’s monument to the environment, erected in Stockholm in 1994. This monument represents a type of public art that emerged in the mid-1990s, and I argue that it signifies a major shift in thinking of monumentality. Contrary to the common view of monuments as based on memorial value, this monument is not related to memory but to recording the present and signaling possible futures. As detailed above, interactive digital technology is a crucial aspect of this. By describing and analyzing the history of The Environmental Monument, and by examining the physical monument, including its location, form, and material, as well as its function, I show that the monument both aligns with and simultaneously contradicts other kinds of historical and contemporary monuments. That makes it difficult to characterize.

In the early 1990s, a number of initiatives were launched to promote Stockholm as a clean city closely related to the water (e.g., the Stockholm Water Festival, the Stockholm Water Prize, and the Stockholm Water Foundation, the last under the patronage of the king).⁵⁸ As Petra Adolfsson shows, the obelisks fit well in this context.⁵⁹ The symbolic relation to Stockholm as a city characterized by its relation to the water was further a well thought-out part of the iconography of the obelisks. According to the artist’s proposal, the wave-shaped light strands on the sides of the obelisks have a symbolic connection to the city precisely because their shape is reminiscent of the waves of water. Moreover, Garney points out, they are also linked to the logo of Stockholm Vatten och Avfall.⁶⁰

This means that The Environmental Monument bears a striking resemblance to the kind of public sculpture that Rebecca Farley and Venda Louise Pollock characterized as “BIG public art” in this journal three years ago.⁶¹ Like BIG public art, The Environmental Monument is large and lavish, and it attracted both the private and public sectors. Moreover, as is revealed by the jury’s final statement, there was hope that The Environmental Monument would put Stockholm on the map. Attempts were made to ensure this happened: for instance, the draft for the press release ahead of the inauguration stated that: “Stockholm has gained a new sight!”⁶² Early on, there was even an idea to create souvenirs in the form of miniature monuments.⁶³ And, although it was not completely “prone to failure,”⁶⁴ it did not turn out quite as it was intended. However, unlike BIG public art, The Environmental Monument was not created by a high-profile artist, and even though it is large, its most prominent feature is not size—it is its interactive technology.

This is probably why Latour asks whether it is a postmodern work of art. Is the combination of the classical form and the contemporary material an art-historical questioning of a classical form? No, according to the archival material. As indicated above, the classical form has been chosen precisely because of its art-historical qualities and connotations, just as the interactive digital technology has been chosen for its characteristics. Combining them should therefore not be seen as a way of questioning the connotation of the form, but as building on its symbolic meaning.

At the same time, I show that the deviation from the original location, form, material, and function of ancient Egyptian obelisks problematizes the symbolic value on which The Environmental Monument was intended to be based. This may be a reason why Latour, as well as media in Sweden, instead of approaching the monument as an art-historical object, seem rather to consider it as an amusing feature of the city, by using expressions such as “égypto-disney” and “Star-Trek.”⁶⁵ They simply did not know how to relate to the monument. I argue that a key reason is the shift in thinking about monumentality signified by the monument. Hence, although the monument builds on a historical form and location, it was not erected to make us remember something in the past, or the historical deeds of a person, but to encourage future engagement on a matter of public importance.

If, following Balsamo, we consider The Environmental Monument as a specific cultural form at the intersection of interactive art and commercial interactive products, the difficulties in characterizing it are not so surprising. From such a perspective, the similarities and differences with other monuments and other types of public art become instead a way of using already familiar cultural forms of symbolic meaning making to create new meanings. As a monument, The Environmental Monument is a symbol of our common responsibility for the environment, and of the broader times of the information society, when it was commissioned and erected. It can be characterized as a digital monument. This should not be confused with virtual memorials, but rather a way of emphasizing the significance of combining the physical monumental object with interactive digital technology.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article was written as a part of the research project “Digital Monuments: Technology, Ephemerality and Memory in Swedish Public Art, 1994–2015,” funded by the Swedish Research Council (Dnr 2018-01676). I am grateful to the Public Art Dialogue anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the original draft of this article.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Orrghen

Anna Orrghen is associate professor of art history at Uppsala University, Sweden. She holds a PhD in media and communication studies, and her research explores art and new technologies in general, and digital art in particular. She has published on art, science and technology collaborations, the history of computer art, digital public art, and art criticism.

Notes

1 Original quote in French: “S’agit-il d’un essai d’architecture postmoderne? Non, c’est Sa Majesté le roi Charles XVI Gustave [sic] qui on a ordonné l’erection, en l’an de grâce 1994. Comment! Le rois de Suède, monarque modeste qui fait ses courses comme le premier citoyen venu, se serait-il soudain pris pour Ramsès II, pour Mohammed Ali ou Louis-Philippe, au point de se mettre à dresser des obélisque en l’honneur du soleil? Se croit-il pharaon? Point du tout. Si Sa Majesté s’est mise en tête de réinventer l’obélisque, c’est en l’honneur de la Science, avec un grand S, et plus particulièrement pour sacrifier aux divinités nouvelles de l’anti-pollution…” Bruno Latour, “Les monoliths de Stockholm,” La Recherche (Dec. 1999): 326. All translations are by the author unless otherwise indicated.

2 Original quote in Swedish: “en permanent informationstavla eller skulptur som dagligen kunde ge huvudstadens invånare och besökare intressanta data om kvaliteten på stadens luft och vatten,” Leaflet, “Hans Majestät Konungens Miljömonument,” Stockholm Vatten och Avfall, 1994.

3 On this, see Anna Orrghen, “From Visions of Technological Progress to Technological Ruins: The Swedish Millennium Monument and the Challenges of Preservation of Digital Public Art,” Public Art Dialogue 11, no. 2 (2021): 208–25, accessed Feb. 22, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/21502552.2021.1996767.

4 The concept should not be confused with virtual memorials that are created and presented in an entirely digital realm. On virtual memorials, see the contributions in New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 21, no. 1–2 (2015), particularly Laurie M. C. Faro, “The Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands: A Meaningful, Ritual Place for Commemoration,” New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 21, no. 1–2 (2015): 165–85, accessed Feb. 19, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2014.983556.

5 Alois Riegl, “The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Its Origin.” Translated by Kurt W. Forster and Diane Ghirardo, Oppositions 25 ([1903] 1982): 21.

6 Riegl, “The Modern Cult of Monuments.”

7 See for instance James E. Young who, when he defines memorials in relation to monuments, argues that: “A monument is always a kind of memorial.” James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1993), 3. Art historians Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin share this view. While examining the relationship between monuments and memory, they argue that monuments and memory are “etymologically related and descend from notions of remembering.” Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin, “Introduction,” in Monuments and Memory, Made and Unmade, eds. Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 4.

8 On this, see for example, James E. Young, “The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 267–96.

9 On recent research on monuments, see Dzenan Sahovic and Dino Zulumovic, “Changing Meaning of Second World War Monuments in Post-Dayton Bosnia Herzegovina: A Case Study of the Kozara Monument and Memorial Complex,” in War and Cultural Heritage: Biographies of Place, eds. Marie Louise Stig Sørensen and Dacia Viejo-Rose (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 208–24; Sarah Beetham, “From Spray Cans to Minivans: Contesting the Legacy of Confederate Soldier Monuments in the Era of ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Public Art Dialogue 6, no 1 (2016): 9–33, accessed Feb. 20, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/21502552.2016.1149386; Jenelle Davis, “Marking Memory: Ambiguity and Amnesia in the Monument to Soviet Tank Crews in Prague,” Public Art Dialogue 6, no. 1 (2016): 35–57, accessed Feb. 20, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/21502552.2016.1149387; Laura A. Macaluso, ed., Monument Culture: International Perspectives on the Future of Monuments in a Changing World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); Sierra Rooney, Jennifer Wingate, and Harriet F. Senie, eds., Teachable Monuments: Using Public Art to Spark Dialogue and Confront Controversy (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021); Lindsay E. Shannon, “Gender and Modernity in Public Monument’s: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Women’s Organizational Monuments in the 1920s,” Public Art Dialogue 11, no. 1 (2021): 23–46, accessed Feb. 20, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/21502552.2020.1868166; Erin L. Thompson, Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2022).

10 But see Orrghen, “From Visions of Technological Progress to Technological Ruins.” For research on other kinds of digital public art, see Steve Dietz, “Interactive Publics,” Public Art Review 15, no. 1 (2003): 23–9; Linda Ryan Bengtsson, Re-Negotiating Social Space: Public Art Installations and Interactive Experience (Karlstad: Karlstads universitet, 2012); Christiane Paul, “Augmented Realities: Digital Art in the Public Sphere,” in A Companion to Public Art, 205–26; Julia Marsh, “Distant Stars, Black Holes and Burned Out Sculptures: Media Obsolescence and the Trouble with Public Media Works,” Public Art Dialogue 6, no. 1 (2016): 131–40; Martin Zebracki and Jason Luger, “Digital Geographies of Public Art: New Global Politics,” Progress in Human Geography 43, no. 5 (2019): 890–909; Laura Lee Coles, “Landscape, Eco-Arts Practice, and Digital Technology in the Public Art Realm,” in The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm, eds. Cameron Cartiere and Leon Tan (London: Routledge, 2021), 243–56.

11 Anne Balsamo, “The Cultural Work of Public Interactives,” in A Companion to Digital Art, ed. Christiane Paul (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 330–51.

12 Balsamo, “The Cultural Work of Public Interactives,” 335.

13 The approach is inspired by Marianne Doezema, “The Public Monument in Tradition and Transition,” in The Public Monument and Its Audience, ed. Marianne Doezema (Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1977), 9-21, and Young, “The Counter-Monument.”

14 Magnus Rodell, Att gjuta en nation: Statyinvigningar och nationsformering i Sverige vid 1800-talets mitt (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 2001), 18–20.

15 On postwar monuments in Sweden, see Jessica Sjöholm Skrubbe, Skulptur i folkhemmet: Den offentliga skulpturens institutionalisering, referentialitet och rumsliga situationer 1940–1975 (Göteborg: Makadam, 2007), 114–45.

16 Sjöholm Skrubbe, Skulptur i folkhemmet, 114; Annika Öhrner, “Miroslaw Balka och Estoniaminnesvården,” in Miroslaw Balka: En minnesvård (Stockholm: Statens Konstråd, 1998), 23.

17 Doezema, “The Public monument in Tradition and Transition.”

18 On this, see for instance, Harriet F. Senie, Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), especially Chapter 1, “Memorials and Monuments Reconsidered,” 18–60; Cher Krause and Harriet F. Senie, eds., A Companion to Public Art (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2016).

19 Young, “The Counter-Monument.”

20 Doezema, “The Public Monument in Tradition and Transition,” 21.

21 Brian A. Curran, Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss, Obelisk: A History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 8.

22 G. Thomas Goodnight and Sandy Green, “Rhetoric, Risk, and Markets: The Dot-Com Bubble,” Quaterly Journal of Speech 96, no. 2 (2010): 115–40, accessed Jun. 8, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335631003796669

23 Anders Henten and Thomas Myrup Kristensen, “Information Society Visions in the Nordic Countries,” Telematics and Informatics 17, no. 1–2 (2000): 77–103, accessed Feb. 20, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0736-5853(99)00028-3.

24 Per Lundin, “Computers and Welfare: The Swedish Debate on the Politics of Computerization in the 1970s and the 1980s,” in History of Nordic Computing 4, 4th IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, HiNC 4, Copenhagen, Denmark, Aug. 13–15, 2014, Revised Selected Papers, eds. Christian Gram, Per Rasmussen, and Søren Duus Østergaard (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2015), 3–11.

25 Orrghen, “From Visions of Technological Progress to Technological Ruins.”

26 Lundin, “Computers and Welfare,” 9.

27 On the emergence and history of digital art, see Christiane Paul, “Introduction: From Digital to Post-Digital—Evolutions of an Art Form,” in Paul, ed., A Companion to Digital Art, 1–19. On the relationship between monuments and public sculpture during the twentieth century, see Sergiusz Michalski, Public Monuments: Art in Political Bondage 1870–1997 (London: Reaktion Books, 1998). On public art as part of the branding of cities, see Rebecca Farley and Venda Louise Pollock, “Size Isn’t Everything: The Failure of BIG Public Art,” Public Art Dialogue 10, no. 2 (2020): 197–216.

28 The jury’s final statement, “HM Konungens Miljöinformation. Tävling på Konstfack,” Jul. 6, 1993, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design’s Archive, no. 13—“Ansökningar om medel och bidrag,” University of Arts, Crafts and Design.

29 The air and water quality of Stockholm has been monitored for decades. On this, see Petra Adolfsson, “Environment’s Many Faces: On Organizing and Translating Objects in Stockholm,” in Global Ideas: How Ideas, Objects and Practices Travel in the Global Economy, eds. Barbara Czarniawska and Guje Sevón (Malmö: Liber, 2005), 94–105.

30 Petra Adolfsson, “The Obelisks of Stockholm,” in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy eds. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005), 396.

31 The finalists were: Martin Hansson, Elisabet Ramel, and Christopher Garney. Requisition from Eva Åkesson to Bo Krantz regarding “H M Konungens miljöinformation,” Jun. 22, 1993, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design’s Archive, no. 13—“Ansökningar om medel och bidrag,” University of Arts, Crafts and Design. Draft for press release, “HM Konungens Miljömonument,” May 24, 1994, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall’s archive, “Miljömonumentet,” Stockholm Vatten och Avfall.

32 Original quote in Swedish: “estetik, teknik och genomförbarhet.” Draft for press release, “HM Konungens Miljömonument.”

33 Proposal for implementation schedule, Oct. 4, 1993, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design’s Archive, no. 13—“Ansökningar om medel och bidrag,” University of Arts, Crafts and Design.

34 Lars Romare, “Obelisker—nytt blickfång,” Vatten Trycket 3 (July 1994): 3.

35 On the ceremonial unveiling of statues in Sweden during the nineteenth century, see Rodell, Att gjuta en nation.

36 See, the jury’s final statement, “HM Konungens Miljöinformation.”

37 See, Proposal, “Mätare,” Stockholm Vatten och Avfall’s archive, “Miljömonumentet,” Stockholm Vatten och Avfall.

38 Original quote in Swedish: “Med sina två obelisker kombinerar Garney på ett måttfullt sätt ett traditionellt, beprövat formspråk med modern teknik. Cementmosaiken, terrazzon, ger obeliskerna den gedigna, beständiga stenkaraktären samtidigt som denna teknik ger stora möjligheter att utforma de detaljer som ska släppa fram miljöinformationen. Dessa två kungliga miljöfyrar, som kan ses både från land och från vattnet, har förutsättningar att på ett uthålligt sätt bli symboler för en god luft- och vattenmiljö i huvudstaden.” The jury’s final statement, “HM Konungens Miljöinformation.”

39 Press release, “Konstnärlig utsmyckning mäter hur miljön mår,” Aug. 25, 2022, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall, accessed, Feb. 20 2023. https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/stockholmvattenochavfall/pressreleases/konstnaerlig-utsmyckning-maeter-hur-stockholms-miljoe-maar-3199642,

40 On the characteristics of obelisks, see Curran et al., Obelisk.

41 On nineteenth-century American obelisks as lookout towers, see John Zukowsky, “Monumental American Obelisks: Centennial Vistas,” The Art Bulletin 58, no. 4 (1976): 578.

42 Zukowsky, “Monumental American Obelisks,” 579.

43 Curran et al., Obelisk, 14–15.

44 Proposal, “Mätare.”

45 On the choice of material for conventional monuments, see Young, “The Counter-Monument,” 294.

46 Proposal, “Mätare.”

47 On the use of terrazzo, see Tye Botting, James Guidry, Melissa Schmidt, Cole Stevens, and Mary Striegel, “Effects of Vitrification on Traditional Terrazzo,” APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology 38, no. 4 (2007): 33–42.

48 Curran et al., Obelisk, 7.

49 I have not been able to trace the request for proposals in the archival sources.

50 Leaflet, “Hans Majestät Konungens Miljömonument.”

51 Curran et al., Obelisk, 14.

52 Curran et al., Obelisk, 7.

53 Draft for press release, “HM Konungens Miljömonument.” “Lighthouse” was used by the artist in his original proposal. Proposal, “Mätare.”

54 Leaflet, “Hans Majestät Konungens Miljömonument.”

55 Original quote in Swedish: “Det är Miljöförvaltningens och Stockholm Vattens förhoppning att monumentet ska stimulera till fördjupat miljöintresse och aptit på mer information och man är beredd att efter bästa förmåga svara på frågor som detta kan ge upphov till.” Draft for press release, “HM Konungens Miljömonument.”

56 A related example is Sweden’s national monument celebrating the millennium, which, when it was inaugurated on Dec. 20, 1999, was erected eleven days ahead of the event it was intended to commemorate. See Orrghen, “From Visions of Technological Progress to Technological Ruins.”

57 Press release, “Konstnärlig utsmyckning mäter hur miljön mår.”

58 On this, see Andrea Lucarelli, Cecilia Cassinger, and Karin Ågren, “Continuity and Discontinuity in the Historical Trajectory of the Commercialising of Cities: Storying Stockholm 1900–2000,” Business History (2021): 16–17, accessed Feb. 20, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.1979517, and Veronica Stolt, “Pageantry of the Past, Festivity of the Future,” Scandinavian Review 81, no. 1 (1993): 28–31.

59 On the obelisks as an example of promoting Stockholm as “the clean city,” see Adolfsson, “Environment’s Many Faces,” 104–5, and Adolfsson, “The Obelisks of Stockholm,” 396.

60 Proposal, “Mätare.”

61 Farley and Pollock, “Size Isn’t Everything.”

62 Draft for press release, “HM Konungens Miljömonument.”

63 Evalis Björk, “Betong blir miljömonument,” Göteborgs-Posten, May 22, 1994, accessed Feb. 22, 2023. https://app-retriever-info-com.ezproxy.its.uu.se/services/archive.

64 Farley and Pollock, “Size Isn’t Everything,” 199.

65 Original quote in French, “égypto-disney.” Latour, “Les monoliths de Stockholm,” 326. Original quote in Swedish: “Star-Trek.” Juan Flores, “Kunglig obelisk mäter miljön,” Dagens Nyheter, Jun. 17 1994, accessed Feb. 22, 2023. https://app-retriever-info-com.ezproxy.its.uu.se/services/archive.