Public art has always been a difficult business.

Make something too ordinary and everybody complains that the council has wasted money on a massive beige cube.

Make something too abstract and someone inevitably says:

"My four-year-old could have done that."

And if you are bringing an enormous inflatable artwork to a park in Watford, there is apparently a third possibility:

Accidentally erect something that looks like a colossal penis.

Welcome to Colourscape.

COME FOR THE ART, STAY BECAUSE YOU CAN'T UNSEE IT

Colourscape is returning to Cassiobury Park in Watford from 22 to 31 August, where visitors will be able to wander through roughly 70 interconnected chambers filled with intense colour, natural light, music and live performance.

It is a long-running immersive arts project created by artists Peter Jones and Lynne Dickens and presented by Eye Music Trust. The organisation says versions of Colourscape have been staged for decades, combining colour, music, movement and performance inside enormous inflatable structures.

All very cultured.

All very worthy.

All very beautiful.

Unfortunately, somebody filmed the outside.

And the internet collectively went:

"That's a massive cock."

FORTY YEARS OF ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT DEFEATED IN THREE SECONDS

Pictures and video of the Watford installation have attracted attention because, from certain angles, the sprawling inflatable structure bears what can politely be described as an unfortunate anatomical resemblance.

This is the brutal reality facing every artist in the social-media age.

You can spend decades developing an internationally toured immersive sensory experience.

You can create 70 chambers of shifting colour.

You can bring in musicians.

Dancers.

Experimental instruments.

Computer-generated sound.

You can dedicate your entire professional life to exploring humanity's relationship with colour and space.

Then Gary from Hemel Hempstead sees one photograph and writes:

"LOL giant bellend."

And that's the review everyone remembers.

WATFORD COUNCIL HAD SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WORDING

Watford Council describes the attraction as a giant labyrinth of glowing colour offering immersive performances and extraordinary live music.

That is almost certainly the wording to use on the official poster.

"GIANT LABYRINTH OF GLOWING COLOUR."

Classy.

Inviting.

Family-friendly.

Considerably better than:

"COME AND WALK THROUGH WATFORD'S ENORMOUS INFLATABLE KNOB."

Marketing matters.

YOU ACTUALLY GO INSIDE IT

Visitors don't merely stand outside taking photographs and behaving like 14-year-olds.

The whole point of Colourscape is to enter the structure.

Inside are interconnected inflatable chambers where translucent materials allow daylight to flood the spaces with different colours. Musicians and performers move through the labyrinth as visitors explore.

Which means thousands of people are shortly going to experience the sentence:

"We spent Saturday afternoon inside it."

Grandparents.

Families.

Children.

Councillors.

Nobody is safe.

Some poor local journalist is going to have to conduct an entirely serious interview while consciously avoiding the phrases:

Huge erection

Impressive length

Difficult to miss

Going inside

Firm favourite

Standing proudly

Bigger than expected

Ten-day run

This is why journalism degrees take three years.

THERE WILL BE MUSIC IN THE TIP

Weekday sessions are due to feature resident musician Michael Ormiston with family-friendly interactive music, while weekends will include ensembles, dancers, new instruments and computer music.

Again, absolutely lovely.

But once your brain has identified the shape, normal English becomes impossible.

"Where are the musicians?"

"They're performing near the end."

Stop it.

"How many people can fit inside?"

Grow up.

"Is it hard to get tickets?"

We're done here.

IT IS, IMPORTANTLY, ACTUALLY QUITE COOL

Strip away the internet's relentless determination to find a penis in absolutely everything and Colourscape sounds genuinely interesting.

The installation has been running in different forms for more than 40 years, and visitors explore an environment designed around how changing colours, daylight, sound and movement alter perception.

It is unusual.

Interactive.

Accessible to families.

And infinitely more imaginative than putting another fucking artisan burger stall in a park and calling it a festival.

There is real artistic intent here.

Unfortunately, artistic intent does not change silhouette.

THE INTERNET WAS NEVER GOING TO LET THIS PASS

Online viewers have filled social media with jokes about the structure's appearance since footage circulated.

Nobody should be surprised.

Human civilisation could discover intelligent extraterrestrial life tomorrow.

Aliens could descend from the sky bearing the cure for cancer, limitless clean energy and the answer to every philosophical question humanity has ever asked.

If their spaceship looked even slightly like a cock, Twitter would have forgotten the cancer cure within eleven minutes.

This is who we are.

Ancient Romans drew them on walls.

Schoolchildren draw them on desks.

Adults spot them in clouds.

Give mankind an unusually shaped inflatable tube and thousands of years of cultural development disappear immediately.

THE ARTISTS SHOULD PROBABLY JUST OWN IT

There is only one viable response now.

Do not deny it.

Do not issue a furious statement explaining geometry.

Do not insist people aren't appreciating the conceptual relationship between colour, space and sound.

Lean in.

Special merchandise.

"I went inside Colourscape and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

A VIP entrance marked THE SHAFT.

A café serving foot-long hot dogs.

Annual membership renamed Full Member.

Watford tourism numbers would explode.

Possibly not the right word.

PLEASE REMAIN MATURE

Colourscape opens at Cassiobury Park on Saturday 22 August and runs until Monday 31 August.

Visitors can explore the giant colourful labyrinth, encounter live performers and experience a genuinely unusual piece of immersive art.

And everybody should approach it with the maturity and cultural sophistication the artists deserve.

Look beyond its external shape.

Think about colour.

Think about light.

Think about sound.

Consider the interaction between art, environment and human perception.

Whatever you do, do not stand outside pointing at it and laughing because it looks like an absolutely enormous cock.

That would be terribly childish.

We'll see you there.

Sources: Watford Borough Council | Watford Actually | Eye Music Trust | The Sun

Sources

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