Stereo speakers in air ducting, vent grille, false ceiling, video monitor, mixer, cabling, projection onto hanging screen in front of blackout drape, HD video loop of two shots from Die Hard (1988)
One of the best things about making art in non-institutional spaces is that sometimes something about the space – a particlar story, a weird bit of architecture or some quirk of the building structure – can focus a half-formed idea and make the work almost all by itself.
I had initially seen this space with Liam Slevin for potential use for the MAW festival artists. The air duct running along the length of the space, and the odd suspended ceiling section looked ripe for some sort of intervention. When invited to exhibit in the same space, it got me thinking about a half formed idea, making a site specific version of the Hollywood cliche of crawling around an air vent as a means of escape as seen in films like Die Hard.
Nothing Lasts Forever (part 1) transposes an iconic scene from the fictional ‘Nakatomi Plaza’ in the Die Hard (1988) film, to the ventilation duct in this ex-B&M shop used as a temporary exhibition space by The Auxiliary.
Beneath the extensive air ducting in the space, a sort of deconstructed cinema is set up. A projection screen hangs with a blackout cloth background. Assorted cabling – power, sound and light, is strung up over a false ceiling panel, casting their shadows onto the screen. An air vent grille from the ducting lies on the floor to one side.
The sound is replumbed into the ducting above. As we see a shot of the protagonist crawling inside the ducting towards camera, the sound mirrors the real distance travelled left to right and back again. John McLane, played by Bruce Willis, appears to be crawling backwards and forwards inside a defunct retail space in Middlesbrough.
Bruce Willis/John McLane crawls backwards and forwards, notionally forever trapped in a disused shop in Middlesbrough. Nothing Lasts Forever takes its title from the novel which was turned into the 1988 film Die Hard.
Here’s a rough bit of video documentation:
* The potential ‘long stereo’ of the ducting and the odd theatricality of the false ceiling also has elements of a couple of previous projects I’ve made with Simon Hollington – one that used a false ceiling in Folkestone’s Wilko’s , and another that used sound and a turnstile in Brockwell Lido, London as well as The Conversation.