A piece of high-tech public art has broken down just days after it was unveiled.

People all over the world were invited to send text messages to the Spectra-txt tower in Middlesbrough which would then change colour on demand.

But since the April 15 switch-on, the statue has had so many messages it has not had a chance to wipe its own memory. Now the system has become overloaded and has broken down.

Middlesbrough Council spokesman Mike Clarke said: "It seems to have been a victim of its own success. It's a complicated piece of equipment. Inside is a modem that receives the texts. Because so many people have been texting it from all over the world it has been working non-stop which means its self-cleansing mechanism has not kicked in.

"We are going to alter the timing programme so it can run for longer. We anticipate it will be up and running very soon. It has caught people's imagination and hopefully we can accommodate this extra interest."

Designer Peter Freeman was brought in to fix the problem and has promised council chiefs the tower will run for six years.

But critic Gordon Shippey is angry at the amount of money spent on the installation.

He said: "I walked past the text tower in town, only to be told by an engineer from the council that the modem blew up and the tower lights are faulty - all this is costing about £80,000."

Spectra-txt is a 10m high, four-sided, mirrored post, covered in more than 1,000 fibre optic lights.

One of the first text messages sent to the post came from Tahiti - where Captain Cook visited 236 years earlier.