Escape Vehicle no.6

SD Video, 25min, 2004

Escape Vehicle no.6 records the journey of a domestic chair from the surface of the earth to the edge of space. The grainy footage transmitted back from this journey, first shows a chair rushing upwards – away from the fields and roads of southern England. Dangling beneath an unseen weather-balloon, the chair ascends through the clouds and finally, seen against the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space, the chair begins to disintegrate. Escape Vehicle no.6 was originally a live performance where an audience first watched the launch of the balloon and chair and then witnessed the live, transmitted video. The work is now presented as a 25min video-work edited down from the original live-transmission event.

The empty chair invites the audience to imagine taking a journey to an uninhabitable realm where it is impossible to breathe. A realm that usually belongs to national space agencies and billionaires. Where the temperature is minus 60º and the sky resembles the blackness of space. The upper edge of a thin film of blue that is only 30km above our heads.