The demolition of two 19 storey block of flats at Queen Elizabeth Square, Gorbals in Glasgow, billed as the biggest controlled explosion in Europe since the Second World War.
At the start of the first term, Peter McCaughey gave a great lecture about engaging as an artist with the city of Glasgow. He described a project, Wave, that he had done about the demolition of high rises in the Gorbals in 1993. In it he was trying to explore what it means to live in something all your life and then see it go in an instant. He had 14 camera crews capturing the demolition from different angles and then cut the footage into a film that included interviews with people. Twelve hours after the demolition, when there was the possibility of a more reflective moment, he projected this film (which started with a long countdown, like the one leading to the demolition itself) onto a derelict building in the area. People gathered to watch and when the footage of the demolition came on, a gasp went up from the crowd. This was different from the more excited atmosphere around the demolition itself and was exactly what he was trying to achieve, he said.
In that sense this art work may have provoked a reaction that was different from the one provoked by the event itself, by mediating it in a particular way… or for some people it may have re-ignited and articulated what they already felt. Maybe the timing – a gap, but a relatively short one – between the event and the art work was equally important. Perhaps the work helped to open up a space for people to talk to each other about what the demolition meant to them.
At SEA 