Escaping the pull of Earth (blog)

17/07/2009

One of The Arts Catalyst's most exciting commissions, Simon Faithfull's Escape Vehicle No. 6 is now showing at the BFI gallery.

A highlight of Arts Catalyst's first International Artists Airshow in Farnborough in 2004, Faithfull's No.6 consists of a full-scale chair suspended beneath a weather balloon with a camera and transmitter positioned so that the lens frames the chair dangling in mid-shot. This apparatus was released from a launch pad and rapidly rose above the earth ultimately into the blackness of the stratosphere on the edge of space. With the naked eye, the audience on earth at Farnborough watched the balloon and chair recede and disappear into the sky, but they were then immediately able to follow the rest of the journey on a giant screen via a live video downlink from the escape vehicle. The chair is seen precariously swaying beneath the balloon on its desperate journey into the void. The faltering image of the empty chair, transmitted increasingly weakly back to earth, asks the viewer to imagine occupancy, offering a conceptual escape but ultimately presenting a chilling vision of a kind of death.

The BFI exhibition Gravity Sucks brings together the complete series of Simon Faithfull's escape vehicle works, seven artworks that utilise aballoons, insects and rockets from which to imagine defying gravity.

On until the 20 September 2009.

Nicola Triscott, Director