In it's original (1999) form Town Hall was designed for an Arts Centre housed in a late 19th century Town Hall building. The site-specific installation was built around architectural and decorative features dating back to this earlier period. The work also had to contend with the daily use of the building as a fringe theatre venue, and so combined the artist's interest in the power relations implicit in civic architecture with a sense of live, 'staged' involvement for visitors using the main stairs.
In the installation a large scale projection over the stairs captures the viewer in the act of ascending to the first, spotlit landing. The projection combines live and recorded surveillance video from the lower BAC foyer, and in addition to the viewer's own appearance a ghosted male figure repeatedly approaches in slow motion, only to become frozen and fade away on the threshold of the stairs. This 'absent visitor' who can never reach the spotlight calls into question the mechanics of the apparently live surveillance image, and emphasises the significance of the grand staircase in rendering a given subject visible or invisible.
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Fixed to the marble banisters in the stairwell are flickering CCTV monitors. These show the live relay of an inanimate but culturally loaded object: a bulldog's head from a 1943 plaque permanently installed at BAC behind the large projection screen. A temporary vitrine around the plaque contains various paraphernalia of illumination and surveillance (strobe lighting and CCTV camera); mechanisms which help to transform the concealed symbol of jingoism into a silent 'chorus' flanking the spotlit stage of the stairwell.
Funding & exhibition details
Commissioned by BAC London (Battersea Arts Centre)
as part of the solo project Cloud Cover 1999Cloud Cover included the following elements:
Two installations at BAC Town Hall and Cumulus (18 September - 29 October 1999)
and a website
Cloud Cover was funded by the Arts Council of England
Thanks to Frances Hegarty, Julie Westerman, Lesley Sanderson, Neil Conroy, John Coen, Mark Purcell, Kiaran Saunders, Chris Mann, Louise Tebbs, Jane Porter, The University of Dundee, and the staff at BAC
