Mike Nelson

A man wakes up sweating inside an uneasy hybrid fiction. Uncertain as to whether someone is trying to kill him or not, he glances nervously around the dingy motel room before making his way to the sink. There he splashes water onto his face, briefly reassured by the familiarity of its reflection. Then he painstakingly goes through each detail one more time.

Walking down the stairs from the bustling brightly-lit cafe, a red light sunken into the ceiling flickers and slowly goes out. Others remain on unblinking, swamping the gallery space in a vaguely seedy atmosphere which insists on the sense of confinement that attaches to its being a windowless basement. Agent Dixon at the Red Star Hotel... A large spherical heap consisting almost entirely of old crates and cardboard boxes, tied together with assorted bits of rope and string, blocks the way to the toilet. Moving carefully around it, stamps and markings along its many surfaces attest to its far-flung and motley origins, with more than a whiff of desperation attaching itself to some of them. Handle with care... Mehta Brothers...MANOHAR Book Services New Delhi...COOPAGRI Montenegro... Bolted firmly into position, struts of heavy metal scaffolding protrude from its awkward bulk to both ceiling and floor. Despite this, a ridiculous impression lingers of it hovering about half a foot or so above the shiny stone floor.

In a caravan stuffed full of make-up and costumes, an aerialist and her minder discuss the mechanics of flight and illusion. Meanwhile, in a wasteland somewhere in America, a young boy is being instructed in the art of levitation. Finally, independent to the point of being completely ignorant of one another, all agree upon the paradoxical necessity of foregrounding that awkward physicality particular to the theatrical the better to successfully present an illusion; all the more so the illusion of flight. By these lights, the accomplished staging of the illusion of flight is predicated on staging it as precisely that - an illusion. The peculiarity of such an achievement is that its success is grounded not in the certainty of doubt, 'O, are you really flying?', but in the certainty slowly, almost imperceptibly, wavering at the very point where it speaks itself, 'You cannot hover above the ground even so much as six inches... if you do it is an illusion... I know... I can see the strings... I know I can see them... I am certain...'

And back in the basement, time spins out and slows down - all the better to achieve this effect - and the scaffolding exaggerates its own function. Crouching down to verify that it is indeed clearing the floor all the way across, the full absurdity of the notion that this cobbled together heap of boxes should bear a marked resemblance to a space shuttle comes crashing home. Meanwhile, the writing on its outer walls makes sneaking references to the existence of the overhead cafe, marking out its sense of incongruity only to wallow in it. ...Exotimes Fruiticas Tropicales de Mexico... Mount Elephant sliced water chestnuts... Ghana Yams... fresh ginger... Jamaican bananas...

Another, although not too dissimilar, logic of reversals would also seem to be at play in the construction of such a large thing specifically for this space as the limits of the site cannot help but reveal themselves... stretched by way of contraction... shrunken helplessly by the red light the room has been bathed in.

'Hello'

'Hello'

'What's that?'

'A space shuttle'

'Oh... Can you tell me where is the toilet?'

'Yes, it's through there'

'Thank You'

What is particularly funny about this space shuttle is the peculiar way it has been imagined. As if it is based on the design of just any old space shuttle; the realisation of some shuttle, barely featured in an unknown film with a convoluted plot based on a bit of faulty logic, that still somehow managed to get a foothold in the imagination. It's as if this half-remembered shuttle has been re-fantasised just enough to allow it to have materialised. But against this backdrop of half-forgotten, half-invented memories, one scene sticks out in vivid detail.

The cabin of the shuttle is tiny and cramped. A reproduction of Kemal Atatürk has been tacked onto one of its walls. Two open-face crash helmets sporting the Turkish red star and crescent sit on the floor near one small camping stool. In a corner, a fuel canister and some aluminium pots and pans lie in a heap. Two Galaxy radios sit on the floor. No one operates on the particular airwave they've been set to but they crackle on, filling the small cabin up with white noise. A book about Lenin written in Arabic lies casually on the floor under a hammock strung from one corner to the other. A small spotlight has been rigged up and shines down, angled not to enable the missing occupant to read but to be seen. Another helmet sits on a small upturned crate beside an Agfa Instamatic flash camera which sits facing the doorway; pitching itself into some future brimful of the unlikelihood that any photograph it could produce would be adequate to the impulse to use it. But for all that, a glimmer of faint hope flits about its cheap, shiny surfaces... something to do with Lenny Caution.

Two people overheard are drinking coffee.

'Exoticist', one of them says.

Downstairs a white English man is staring into the small wooden cabin of a cardboard space shuttle. Temporarily unsettled by a small plastic detail, he stands there staring into space as he tries to imagine someone ...Agent Dixon... and finds himself drawn to wonder what knowledge and memories and ignorance and fantasies he might possess; and what sense of identity could ever be cobbled together and hold fast on ground as shaky as this.

'...and where is the Red Star Hotel?'

'On a small street in Istanbul'

'Oh'