I AM a member of the so-called "loony conceptual art brigade", and I am writing to support the upside-down trees.

My only criticism is that not enough council tax was spent on them. I am also a conceptual artist and I have put a proposal to the council for my next work, called Spatial Non-Construction VII, which consists of a block of air running from under Ryelands Bridge to Caton.

The air is of course produced by natural sources, and moves rapidly from place to place, so would not actually require any work on my part, thereby stimulating debate about what artists are actually for.

I have looked around Lancaster and I think it is an excellent place for my air for two reasons. One is that Lancaster is obviously run by councillors whose taste is unique. We have a fountain in our central square which looks like something out of a municipal sewage treatment works, including a meditation on the nature of danger, as it tempts all young children to do kamikaze-style attempts to climb up it. We have the student accommodation next to the canal, with its ironic mud-coloured pebbledash, and the new buildings for St Martins, with their tin hut roofs blocking out the view from Williamson Park in a dramatic commentary on the temporal-spatial dynamic of corrugated sheet metal. Most recently we have a new office building, built in the middle of six lanes of traffic where the Little Chef used to be, and obviously designed to look like a Chilean police interrogation centre, thereby posing fascinating questions about the relationship between "working", "torture" and "car exhaust fumes".

Secondly, seeing as Lancaster City Council has spent most its council tax of the last few years on blow-up dolls and legal fees, it can obviously afford to pay for my air. My fee for the work would amount to only about a tenner on the council tax for everyone in the area, together with my Concept Fee of £200 per day, which can come out of the Social Services budget.

Albert Pantygirdle,

Melbourne Road,

Lancaster

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.