Visible from the hallway while passing the cage door of a freight elevator to the right is the sign naming the show painted on the wall: Stephen Cutler – (story)time. The lettering has been spray-painted in black onto the white wall using stencils and is blurry in some places. The door opens into a small hallway which extends perpendicularly to the right of the doorway.
The main space of the gallery opens out from the hallway. On the floor is dark blue carpet, marked in some places where heavy furniture has previously been sitting. A woman enters from a door directly opposite the entrance hall. She has slightly frizzy black hair and is wearing a green sweater and a grey tweed skirt. She is not wearing shoes. Without saying anything she returns through the door and closes it softly. A kitchen area is briefly visible while she opens and closes the door.
On the wall to the left of the door are four photographs and an A4 sheet of paper (“Works by James Freeney”). The piece of paper has a text describing the four photos as being of an installation work in a pedestrian outdoor mall by James Freeney and has a short blurb about Freeney’s career as a performance artist.
In the first photo (“Depth”) a hole has been roughly dug into the mall’s brick footpath, extending roughly five or six feet into the ground and roughly three feet in diameter. Pipes are visible at the bottom of the hole. The hole is behind a bright yellow fence which screens it away from pedestrians. A red piece of plastic is tied onto the fence. Behind the hole an Indian restaurant is visible, with two diners simultaneously in the act of putting a fork-full of food into their mouths. The photo “Less” is of a pile of dirt and bricks. Some of the fence surrounding the hole is visible to the right of the photo, but the hole cannot be seen. A white plastic fork and a green potato-chip packet (ETA Ripples, Salt and Vinegar) are resting on the top of the dirt. One brick is standing upright beside the pile and is a paler shade of red than the others.
The other two photos (“Maker” and “Made”) are both of a small-scale, orange “bucket digger” machine. In the first shot, a man, mentioned in the A4 sheet as being James Freeney, is sitting at the digger’s controls. The photo is from directly in front, the digger’s bucket resting on the ground. Freeney is smoking a cigarette and is wearing ear-protectors and day-glo orange protective glasses. He is wearing a neon orange safety vest. A tattoo is visible on his left forearm. In the background a woman is standing looking out to the right of the frame clutching two books against her chest. In the second photo Freeney is not visible and the digger is parked precisely next to a low stone wall, tracks parallel to it. The main body of the digger is rotated such that the digger-bucket is resting on top of the wall, curled upward. Visible on the arm of the digger is the word “Morepork.” In the background a Thai restaurant’s yellow sign is visible, as well as a small tree.
Indented into right side of the long wall opposite the photos is a small alcove. Facing the alcove is a dark-brown wood chair with cream-coloured material on the back and seat. The seat is in front of a large television (Mitsubishi, 32″) which rests of a small square table in light-coloured wood and is set into the alcove. The legs of the table curve outwards and then back in as they meet the ground. The television is playing a video (“later that night”) on a silver DVD player (SONY). In the video a pair of hands places small pieces of glass onto a light-coloured wood table top with a small amount of inlay-work in the centre in the shape of diamonds. As the video progresses it becomes clear it is a shattered wine-glass which is being placed onto the table (a chipped, but largely whole stem is put down around half-way through). The entire process takes roughly five and a half minutes. Toward the end of the video a small amount of blood can be seen on the tips of the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. On finishing there is a brief period where the hands are gone, then the video loops and the glass is gone. The hands soon begin placing it back on the table.
To the left of the alcove is an office chair and a desk with a computer resting on it. The chair is dark blue and has a tear through which beige-coloured foam is visible at the back of the seat. The desk is light grey and rests on four black wheels on casters. The computer screen is a black-framed LCD (Samsung, 17″) and rests on a beige computer box with both a 3.5″ diskette slot, and a CD-ROM drive. A button labelled “Turbo” has been coloured in red vivid, some of it overlapping onto the surrounding casing. A toilet can be heard flushing behind the wall the desk is pushed against.
On the screen is an internet chat program displaying green text on a black background. Text is appearing on the screen associated with a user called “Cutler6.” The text includes questions such as “Hello?”, “Are you there?”, and “Do you like the show?” All of the text is closed-ended questions except for one which recurs three times: “Where is the money you owe me?” The computer has no attached keyboard or mouse. In the task-bar of the operating system (Windows XP) are three minimised programs: Microsoft Word, Firefox, and MetaQuote. The desktop background picture, partially visible, shows a bright green field of grass and a highly saturated blue sky. Cables (two power cables, one ethernet cable) lead from the computer to the back wall of the gallery and pass underneath the door the woman came from and returned to.
The door is painted light blue with some of the paint having flaked off, especially around the hinges. Looking through the keyhole of the door the woman is visible standing in front of a sink. She is repetitively dunking a teabag into a large mug.
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