Five Angels for the Millennium 2001

Five Angels for the Millennium is an installation comprising five videos projected at a large scale directly onto the walls of a dark gallery space. The videos are individually titled Departing Angel, Birth Angel, Fire Angel, Ascending Angel and Creation Angel. Each video features a clothed male figure rising out of and plunging into a pool of water at irregular intervals, as well as hovering over it in between these movements. In all five films the action is presented in slow motion, and in each one the man and the water are shown in a single colour that changes over time in each film between a range of blue and green tones and a dark, blood red. These hues are accentuated by contrasting areas of bright white and pitch black. The five videos play simultaneously, but they are not synchronised and each is repeated on a continuous loop, so that the figures are seen repeatedly moving in and out of the water. Each projection is accompanied by an individual audio track featuring underwater noises that gradually reach a crescendo that culminates in ‘a sudden explosion of light and sound’ as the figure emerges from the water (Viola in J. Paul Getty Museum 2003, p.146).