Gobstopper

Overview

"What makes an us? Roddy Buchanan’s Gobstopper (2000), recipient of the inaugural Beck’s Futures prize, is deceptively simple. Children sitting in the back of a van are recorded taking an exaggerated inhale before attempting to hold their breath for the duration that it takes to travel through Glasgow’s Clyde Tunnel. Practice for the tunnel’s hypothetical, watery collapse, the game has entered local folklore as something of a ritual born of the project of post-war regeneration." - Marcus Jack