Two chairs for Innovation (blog)

25/11/2009

Members of the public carry Simon Faithfull's Escape vehicle No. 6 to the launch

It is a truism that the number of people becoming aware of a significant performance or live event greatly exceeds the number of people who first witnessed it. Thus I Like America and America Likes Me, in which Joseph Beuys arrived in New York blindfolded and performed a durational work with a coyote, was seen by very few people; but through extensive amplification through documentation and art-historical analysis, and now YouTube, millions are aware of this work.

Around 250 people stood in a windy field in Farnborough at the first Artists Airshow in September 2004 and saw Simon Faithfull successfully launch an apparently domestic chair and a camera (after an initial failure when the balloon detached from the apparatus). Following the ascent of the chair via live transmission, the audience experienced a delerious and uneasy sense of unreality, vicarious vertigo and finally amazement as the chair reached the edge of space - the circumference of the earth visible and the sky black. Simon Faithfull said to us that day 'This is the best thing I have ever done'. Over the last five years, a few more people at our lectures and looking at Simon's and our websites have been made aware of Escape Vehicle No 6, and this year the footage featured in Simon's one-person show Gravity Sucks at the BFI gallery.

Simon was interested in re-creating this piece over the Thames. Working with a film company, Toshiba was approached for sponsorship. But discussions broke down and that seemed to be the end of it. However, Toshiba and Grey, its UK advertising company, were, unbeknownst to us, (the commissioners of the original artwork) developing the idea into an advertising campaign budgeted at around £3m, and last week the ad - shot at considerable expense in Nevada - was launched.

Decide for yourself - by watching this and then this - how similar they are. All well and good, but when Toshiba claimed this was the first time that this had been done here, the whiff of scorching underpants proved too great for many of Simon's supporters, as well as ordinary, outraged YouTube-watchers, and a storm of protest broke out on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and a growing number of dedicated blogs. As a result, the number of people made aware for the first time of this extraordinary work grew to the tens of thousands and is now rising. Good result or bad result? Time will tell.

Rob La Frenais, Curator

Postscript:

Another innovative idea by artists commissioned by The Arts Catalyst, Jem Finer and Ansuman Biswas' Zero Genies, made on our microgravity flight campaign in Russia, is showing at the Quad in Derby as part of the Hayward Touring exhibition The Magic Show, curated by Sally O'Reilly. One for Allied Carpets?

Related blog entries

• 1st International Artists Airshow (blog)

Related blog entries

• 2nd International Artists Airshow (blog)