Installation Proposal:

A fairly small room, longer than it is wide, is split in half so to the user it appears they are entering one very small room, with a screen, plinth and switch facing them. In the other room, to which the interactee is completely oblivious, is the Mouse Trap game.

The user approaches the plinth and triggers the switch, which plays a video of the artist in a mouse mask, setting up the game Mouse Trap. In real time this process took 40 minutes. The video will be sped up to last around 6 minutes – the alleged number of days it took God to create the heavens and the earth. Once the footage has run the screen switches to a camera that is suspended from the second rooms ceiling, filming the mouse trap game. When the video is over and this camera is activated, so too is the mouse trap game, and the user (if they’re still in the first room watching the screen), now gets to see the game in effect through a real time feed from the secret room.

The ideas here are still fairly rough, but do you see what im going for? If you’ve read my blog recently you’ll know I’ve been exploring the contrast between the extensive time taken on the artists behalf to prepare and create a piece of work, compared to the brief time it will take for the reader to view the piece. In my installation I want to force the viewer to sit through the process of creating the art work and delay the expected instant gratification i.e. the Mouse Trap game executed.

The video of the artist setting up the game: I initially imagined the artist in a white room dressed in a mouse costume as this seems to be quite a zeitgeist trendy thing to do at present, what with Mark Wallinger winning the Turner Prize in a bear outfit. However Elly Rees advised that this is a good reason NOT to have it. As well as the fact that the novelty value of someone dressed up as a mouse will detract from the main focus of the piece. Therefore the artist will remain in a white room, but will wear a simple mask simply to hide his identity.