Pop Sm-Art meters - Sir Peter Blake to herald the arrival of 53 million new smart meters in art

Legendary British artist Sir Peter Blake has today announced that he will be taking on one of his most unusual subjects to date, gas and electricity meters. He will create a unique work of art to mark the coming of smart meters to every home in Great Britain. 

The ‘Godfather of British Pop Art’, famous for work including The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeve design, will exhibit the artwork later this year. The ‘Pop Sm-Art’ art exhibition will herald the coming of smart meters, which will be installed in every Great British household by 2020.

Sir Peter is the latest British cultural figure to take inspiration from one of the biggest infrastructural changes in modern times. Earlier in the year (May 2016) Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy published ‘Meters’, a poem that marked the digital switchover from analogue to smart meters. Late last year (November 2015) the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed ‘A Requiem for Meters’, a three-minute piece of music played entirely on instruments made from old gas and electricity meters. The Requiem was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and released for free on Spotify. 

Sir Peter’s piece of original art will feature the new smart meter in-home displays, which are provided with smart meters, and show households exactly how much gas and electricity they are using in pounds and pence.

Sir Peter Blake comments: “Pop art has always been designed for a mass audience so is the perfect medium to capture the significance of smart meters and their arrival in homes across Britain. I am looking forward to getting started and producing a piece of work that serves to record such a big historical and cultural change.”

Sacha Deshmukh, Chief Executive of Smart Energy GB, comments: “It is fantastic that one of our greatest living artists is going to produce a work of art that will visually capture the new smart meter in-home displays which are quickly becoming a fixture of our everyday lives. Over 50 million smart meters will be installed in Great British households by 2020 showing consumers exactly how much energy they are using.” 

More than four million smart meters have already been installed across Great Britain. Smart meters bring an end to estimated bills and mean you can see, in pounds and pence, exactly how much gas and electricity you are using.

Eight in ten people with smart meters would recommend one and the same proportion say they have taken steps to save energy, such as turning off lights, turning their heating down or changing the way household appliances are used.

For more information on smart meters and the national smart meter rollout visit smartenergygb.org.