The Invisible City was a unique cinematic event staged in St Helens. LBM was on hand to document the main event. A collaboration with Abandon Normal Devices (AND) and Alexandra Park (St Helens) Management Limited, the former Pilkington Glass headquarters. Featuring the granddaddy of surveillance films Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. This short film acts as an archive to the installation, delivery and wrap up of the large outdoor screen operation. The main event consisted of a film programme, with a choice of viewing options including ‘drive-in’ and ‘viewing gallery’; and quasi-fictional tours of the Pilkington HQ, which flattened distinctions between famous and forgotten, public and private spaces in the building. The glass fronted office complex was used as a backdrop to ask questions related to transparency and invisibility in our society today.
As you know I have been photographing and filming a variety of locations, workers and monuments on site to develop a body of work that is part installation, part documentary. The events curated by Heart of Glass for the film screenings hosted on the same site have allowed me to make new connections, re-visit old ones and establish some links for potential collaboration between a new, but rapidly growing arts institution in the St Helens area.