I am just going outside, I may be some time

2016
Middleton, Stuart
Much of Stuart Middleton’s video, installation and sculpture has a deliberately rough, improvised quality. His stop-frame animation I am just going outside, I may be some time (2016), which takes its title from the final words of Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates, begins with a block of cheese rapidly decomposing in a fridge. The cheese, formed from modelling clay, twitches and jerks from take to take. As we watch, mould creeps in and fungus sprouts until all that remains is a squirming black puddle. Next, the film follows a small doll-like figure with unruly black hair as it makes its way first through a supermarket and then through a forest, where it curls itself into a foetal position on the leafy ground. In the film’s final scenes a pupa convulses until a red-eyed fly emerges. As unsettling as it is amusing, Middleton’s film speaks of life, death, decay and the struggle to survive in the 21st century.
  • Artwork Details: running time: 6 minutes 22seconds
  • Edition: 1 of 5 + 2 AP
  • Material description: Stop motion animation with sound
  • Credit line: © the artist
  • Theme:
  • Medium: Film and Audio Visual
  • Accession number: ACC25/2016

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

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