BRUCE CHARLESWORTH
AIRLOCK
INSTALLATIONS
Installation detail from Airlock, 2004
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AIRLOCK is a multimedia narrative environment about anticipation and the passage of time. The viewer is lured through spaces and events linked by proximity and video. The three videos in Airlock are seamlessly looped and synchronized with each other. The first video is seen on a monitor in a short hallway approach to the rest of the installation. In this video, a worker (Charlesworth) dressed as a sort of aviator/fly fisherman comes and goes from a sparsely furnished office.
The viewer enters a second space, the room just seen on video. Another video, projected on an upper wall of the second room, reveals scenes in a third room. The viewer passes through a triangular airlock bathed in blue light. The dark final room contains an inflated pool. Additional scenes taking place in the waiting room are projected in this space. Each room has a unique audio ambiance and harmonic tone.
The narrative has no beginning or end because viewers enter and exit at will. They may hesitate to proceed or return through the environment, even knowing that the space is safe and the video is prerecorded. Viewers are meant to discover their willingness to accept a fiction.
