This installation was created as a complex ‘simulation’ that operated on multiple levels to engage, unsettle and perplex the viewer.
Monitors rigged to multiple CCTV cameras within the gallery relayed the current occupancy to viewers approaching the space. A further monitor in the gallery pointedly reinforced the recording of the space. A budget, acid yellow nylon carpet, institutional green painted walls and a dreary planter plucked from a corporate lobby created an additional dimension by offering the viewer threads of familiarity but no cohesive solution.
Cibachrome images of merged film stills and airport concourses were adhered to brightly coloured vinyl covered supports to confuse advertising with mass media that offered no clear-cut message.
The installation continued into a secondary area: when walking towards the entrance an infra-red sensor activated two high powered fans which inflated the walls and ceiling. Bright fluorescent lighting conveyed a sense of floating within the space. Airline seats, requisitioned from the engineering department of British Airways were stripped of their comforting blue corporate design and recovered in a matt PVC vinyl. A video, which was filmed with a licence from the film and television unit at Heathrow Airport, played on two monitors and with scenes that unfurled between crowded and desolate airport terminal interiors as planes drifted to unknown destinations.
Installed June 1991, Cheltenham College of Art (University of Gloucestershire)
