Digital video, SD 720 × 576 4:3

28:13 min

Single or dual channel video installation

Filmed in Liverpool, UK

Camera and sound by Marcus Coates, Ben Coode-Adams and Nick David

Photography by Nick David

Produced with Further up in the Air and Liverpool Housing Action Trust

Commissioned and funded by Film London

As part of an artists’ residency called ‘Further Up in the Air’, Coates stayed in a 24-storey housing block in Liverpool, which was scheduled for demolition. After getting to know the residents, he invited them to participate in a ritual, where he would enter into a trance and communicate with animal spirits. Dressed in a stag pelt, he dances and makes animal and bird calls in front of the residents, before recounting how his encounter with these animals might relate to their question. A second synchronised film shows CCTV footage of Coates descending in the lift, interspersed with footage of all the animals witnessed on his journey.