Lighthouse
2011
12’44”16mm film and hd cam transferred to digital media
Commissioned by De La Warr Pavilion
Supported by Arts Council England

The Royal Sovereign Lighthouse has a formal beauty, standing alone 5 miles out to sea, its platform perfectly square on its round post, facing each point of the compass. But it is also disconcerting. The lighthouse tower on one corner of the platform makes it look as though it could tip over at any second. It marks a danger point of shallow water and whirling currents and extreme tidal pull, it intimates destruction; loss of control and balance. The camera circles the lighthouse from a helicopter, a boat and underwater, becoming progressively more irregular. At moments it is hard to tell whether it is the lighthouse or the camera that turns, then spirals, tips over and sinks underwater. The lighthouse is now deserted and works on automatic; soon it will be abandoned altogether as GPS takes over. What was once a functioning lighthouse turns from a monumental beacon of safety to a vulnerable relic of Modernist omnipotence.