The middle escalator in a London underground station is elevated to 'the' way to heaven. The escalators to its left and right are being used by ordinary passengers to go up or down. That they do this standing the wrong way about is in keeping with the rest of the video in which Wallinger, waving with his white stick and blackened sunglasses, recites continuously the same text from John 1; 1-5 back to front. The only sentence which can be wholly understood is: “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.” Wallinger is the only person who remains at the same spot, for he is walking down on an upwards moving escalator. Walking in place, he monotonously rattles off the same words back to front again and again. As though that is for him the only way to avoid being sucked upwards. After 'this angel' has spoken his text for the third time, the association with the series 'Twin Peaks', in which one of the characters regularly speaks back to front, ends. However in 'Angel' things don't happen as you expect; the blind man's words remain, for the most part, incomprehensible. So all you can do is listen closely (the full text is repeated seven times), line up the various elements one after the other and try to give it meaning. The trance-like way in which the blind man speaks seems to be a preparation for 'going to heaven'. With Handel's penetrating 'Zadok the Priest' (how appropriate) drowning out his voice, the blind man allows himself to be sucked upwards by the escalator. Upwards, on the way to the unknown. To the left and to the right, life carries on, back to front, it is true, but for the rest nothing spectacular happens. For when the blind man has completely disappeared upwards, we hear the rolling of the escalator, voices of waiting passengers and the sound of footsteps in the underground.
– Morene Dekker
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Scenario: Angel Underground, Camera: George Burrel, Sound: David Cunningham, Music: Händel
Mark Wallinger ° 1959, Chigwell (UK)
Lives and works in London (UK)
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