AIR BED
Video Installation. 2007
William Mansfield

1 Channel SD Video. 18:03 mins
16 July - 2 August 2008. 'Performing for the Camera'. Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney. Curated by Kelly Doley and Diana Smith

Air Bed is a low –fi celebration of the banal deed of inflating and deflating an air mattress. This piece captures the poetic life of an inanimate object, as it unfolds and rises like baking bread and the eventual death as it is finally overwhelmed and suffocated by the artist. This work occurs in real time, challenging the audience’s endurance and portraying the beauty of the moment and the spontaneity of the lived experience. Air Bed pays homage to performance/video art of the 60s in particular the work of Bruce Nauman and William Wegman.