Making High Wire

By James Lingwood, 2008
Co-Director, Artangel

Before developing the idea of making a film of a man walking on a high wire, Catherine Yass had already made a number of photographic and video works which registered an experience of the urban environment from a startling perspective. In 2002, she suspended a film camera from a crane in London’s Docklands to create a destabilising video installation entitled Descent. Two years later, she attached a camera to a small remote-controlled helicopter which circled Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in London, to create another vertiginous viewing experience.

For both these works, Yass framed the idea, and then of necessity delegated the recording process. The proposal for High Wire involved a very different and more direct kind of human agency. By the time of our early meetings, the concept had crystallised as an idea to ask a high-wire artist to wear a tiny video camera attached to his head as he traversed the space between two very high buildings, walking on a very thin wire.

The choice of location was central to Yass’s conception for High Wire. She envisaged the high-wire artist walking between two concrete blocks of high-rise social housing: buildings emblematic of that momentous period in the history of the Western city when architects, planners and politicians first imagined, then began to implement, a vision for a new kind of city with a new kind of housing, reaching high into the sky.

The search took us to the top of a number of very high buildings in cities around Britain until we eventually found ourselves in the extraordinary constellation of high-rise structures at Red Road in Glasgow. Eight tower blocks, the highest rising to thirty-one stories, reach almost one hundred metres into the air. When built in the 1960s, they were the tallest residential buildings in Europe, a triumph of the city planners’ vertical dreams. In a city with an unusual density of this kind of housing, Red Road remains conspicuous both for its uncompromising boldness and, however well intended, its misplaced idealism.

From different vantage points in Glasgow, Red Road can be seen from miles away. Of equal importance, from the top of the blocks, the city can be seen stretching all around: its horizontal spread punctuated by clusters of high-rise social housing in every direction. This view from above is at the heart of Yass’s vision for High Wire.

Red Road was the perfect place for the conjunction of two different dreams – the architects’ and planners’ dream of building into the sky, and the individual one of walking in the air; planning, containment and control countered by an expression of space and freedom. An extraordinary idea needed the collaboration of an extraordinary individual, and high-wire artist Didier Pasquette embraced the idea of working with Yass and walking at Red Road. Accustomed to historic sites around Europe, town squares and medieval castles, he immediately understood the relevance of working in a historic site of a different kind.

As is often the case, a wonderfully concise idea evolved into a highly complex process. But after three years of planning, explaining and negotiating, we found ourselves at Red Road, first building platforms on top of the tower blocks, then rigging the horizontal wires and cavalités which anchored the wires to the ground – the taut clean lines traversing the space made for a beautiful spatial installation in itself – then readying Red Road and its residents for the moment when a man would walk out onto a wire high up above their heads…

The planning and production of the walk, the filming and the final installation involved the collaboration of a great many people to whom, on behalf of Catherine and Artangel, we offer our collective thanks.

We would like in particular to thank Tom Dingle, Artangel’s Production Coordinator, who worked on every aspect of the project, from helping find the right site, to researching and planning the logistics of the film shoot, and Rob Bowman, Artangel’s Head of Production, who rose to the multiple challenges of making High Wire happen with great calmness and an exceptional eye for detail. In preparing and rigging the wire, we relied on the expertise of Rod and Dan Jones and their colleagues at RLJ Mechanics. In planning and executing the film shoot, we benefited greatly from the expertise of our Director of Photography, Ossie McLean, and the crew he brought together.

High Wire was commissioned by Artangel and Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art 2008. We are fortunate to have had such unwavering partners, in particular the Director of Gi, Francis McKee, Gi producer Jean Cameron, Claire Simpson from Glasgow Culture, and Mark O’Neill, Director of Glasgow Museums, each of whom made telling interventions to keep the idea alive and eventually make it happen. The Scottish Arts Council funded the project in Glasgow and we are grateful for the guidance of Stephen Palmer, Visual Arts Officer. Arts Council England have made possible a tour of High Wire in England, and we are indebted to Julie Lomax, Senior Visual Arts Officer for her advice and advocacy. We would also like to thank Kerri Moogan, Head of Exhibitions at the CCA in Glasgow where High Wire was presented in the spring of 2008 and Julie Milne and Gemma Millward, Curator and Art Exhibitions Officer at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle where the work was presented in late 2008. At every stage of the project, we have enjoyed the closest support from Alison Jacques and her team at the Alison Jacques Gallery in London, and from Mary Sabbatino and Mark Hughes at Galerie Lelong in New York and we thank them for their commitment.

We could not have been made more welcome at Red Road, and we are particularly grateful for the big-hearted help of Enrico Amato and Linsey McCabe and the team of concierges at Red Road; James Cassidy, Richie Carroll, Marion Lamb, Jim Mays, Ailsa McOuat, and their colleagues at the Glasgow Housing Association; Martin Gibb of Glasgow City Council and Gary Latham of Safety First Solutions, who supported the idea of High Wire from the outset and held the line when they came under heavy pressure to do otherwise.

And finally a heartfelt thanks to the residents of Red Road who embraced the idea of someone walking in the air between the buildings in which they live; to Catherine Yass for keeping the faith through all the vicissitudes of this challenging undertaking and to Didier Pasquette, whose ongoing belief and moment of doubt made this a genuinely breath-taking collaboration.