Bringing Plymouth’s tide into the city
Intertidal transforms four familiar Ford Fiestas into instruments for observing the sea. Stripped of their engines and rebuilt with hidden reservoirs, pumps, sensors and digital controls, the cars contain seawater that rises and falls in response to tidal data.
Inside, sea plants are submerged and revealed as the water moves, echoing the changing conditions of Plymouth’s intertidal zone.
Placed away from the shoreline in familiar city locations, the cars make visible a connection that is easy to overlook. The influence of the sea does not simply stop at the water’s edge. Plymouth is a tidal city, shaped by the movement of water around, through and beneath it.
Intertidal brings that hidden rhythm into everyday life.
Four cars. Four locations. One changing tide.
Each Intertidal car uses its location and tidal data to determine what its water level should be.
As Plymouth’s tide rises and falls, the cars respond. Sensors monitor the water inside each vehicle while pumps and digital controls continually adjust the level, translating information about the nearest tidal point into matching physical movement.
Explore the cars below to see where they are, what the tide is doing and how each one is responding.
Each tank graphic shows the live water level inside that car, driven by the tide at its nearest measuring station — hover over any figure for an explanation of what it shows.
Plymouth Sound National Marine Park
The cars, the water and the city
David Cotterrell
David Cotterrell is an installation artist working across media and technologies to explore the social and political tendencies of a world at once shared and divided.
The practice is typified by an interest in intersection: whether fleeting encounter or heavily orchestrated event, Cotterrell’s works explore the human condition and the breaks or nuances that can lead to a less ambiguous understanding of the world they inhabit.
Cotterrell’s work has been commissioned and shown extensively in Europe, the United States and Asia. He is Professor Emeritus of Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University and is represented by Danielle Arnaud.
Part of Tide Together
Intertidal is a David Cotterrell commission, created as part of Sea for Yourself and Tide Together in Plymouth Sound National Marine Park.
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