Seventeen Minutes
Performance, 1997
hot glass, bricks
House: 5 x 8 x 10 cm

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   The performance took place in an old corn exchange in the outskirts of Edinburgh. For the purpose, I designed and built a small portable glass furnace, which enabled me to use hot glass in a venue outside a functional glassblowing workshop. The space had boarded windows and the warm glow from the furnace illuminated the room.

   During the performance I poured hot glass into an iron mould and cast small glass houses, which were placed on a brick and handed out to the audience. After giving away the first house I declared; This house will explode in seventeen minutes, setting up a tension by the fact that people were given a "time-bomb" to hold in their hands. While I continued casting more houses, the audience members decided to quickly do away with their house and put them on the floor around the room.

   The houses first glowed bright yellow from the core of hot glass. Slowly the color changed from orange into a dark red and finally lost the glow and became clear. After 20 – 25 minutes the houses would explode with a load noise releasing some tension and anticipation in the audience. The performance lasted for about 40 minutes during which discussion and reverie took place.

   Seventeen Minutes speaks of how we rely on what seems to be safe factors in our life, such as our home. The explosions represent how "solid" things in our life can suddenly fall apart, as when someone dies or when losing a job.  

 The reason the glass would explode, is due to tension created when the inside core and the surface cool at different rate. Ordinarily glass is put into annealing kilns to cool down slowly.