Vacuum Cleaner Circle

Film: Dave page. (2mins. 11secs.) Blenhiem Gallery, Cuckoo Farm studios, Colchester 1994

‘The vacuum cleaner circle’ consists of four vacuum cleaners with bin bags attached to their on/off switches. When the bags are inflated this tips the switch to the `on' position. Each bag is inflated from the air being blown from the vacuum cleaner next to it. As the next cleaner switches on, it blows air into the bag of the next one in a sort of chain reaction. The switch on vacuum cleaner No. 4 however is reversed, so with all the bags inflated and the circle complete, No.4 switches ‘off’ instead of ‘on’. This in turn means that all the others go off one by one until No.4 also deflates turning it on again to repeat the sequence.

To add to the irritation of this piece, a party horn was inserted into the suck pipe of each cleaner. This accentuated the already annoying noise of the four vacuum cleaners. An early manifestation of this piece did not have the forth vacuum cleaner with the reversed switch. The result of this was that the first cleaner switched on the next and the next until all four were on at which point they stayed on. It was very loud. I thought that in a gallery space people might walk between the cleaners interrupting the flow of air and therefore intermittently turning the cleaners on and off. To act as a fall back I installed a timing plug which allowed for fifteen minute periods of alternately on and off. I hoped this would make it a bit more bearable.

The first showing of this work was in 1994 (False Exits) in a venue called Cool Tan Arts . It was a squat in Cold harbour Lane, Brixton which had a gallery. The room was huge, with no carpet or furnishings the sound of four vacuum cleaners screaming through party horns echoed mercilessly around the space. At the private view, instead of interacting with the piece and interrupting the air flow, the guests rapidly left the room. I was glad when the fifteen minute timer plug finally turned off. It wasn’t my intention to make such an anti-social piece of work and I was as relieved as everyone else when we could all talk to each other again. However, after its fifteen minute break it turned on again. With the prospect of another quarter of an hour of uninterrupted noise, ‘fifteen minutes’ suddenly seemed like a very long time indeed. I went over to the piece myself to try and disrupt its painful drone. I noticed a man standing next to me; I think he was a regular from ‘Cool Tan’. Over the noise of four vacuum cleaners he shouted.

“HOW LONG DOES THIS GO ON FOR?”
“FIFTEEN MINUTES...........SORRY” I replied.
“NO! -DON’T APOLOGISE!” He went on. “IT’S GREAT! THE WHITE NOISE EFFECT TOTALLY TRANSFORMS THE SPACE.........IT SHOULD STAY ON FOR LONGER”.

The last time the `Vacuum Cleaner Circle' was officially shown was in 2001 when it had the party horns removed and a record player added. The bags moved in time to the music. It was displayed in a giant second hand shop warehouse in Holland. For more details follow the link to Reisbureau Mareado.

Promo shot from 'Domestic Labour-a study in love. Photo: Claire Haigh

In 2013, although still working, it was dismembered for a theatre piece I worked on for 30 Bird Productions called 'Domestic Labour-a study in love'. One day it will hopefully be put back together again.