To support the nomination of the participants to the Happening for the 1998 Turner Prize I commissioned a film of the event. 30 hours of video shot both on the day itself and in the six week lead-up were professionally edited into a twelve minute film which was sent to the Tate Gallery along with the names and addresses of those who had indicated a wish to be nominated by filling in a card. Two minutes had to be cut from the movie in order to get it up on to YouTube. Not an easy task by any means but it had to be done. You will find it here.

I was not eligible myself for the Turner Prize because there is an age limit of 50. We did not make it to the short list. The reason, I maintain, was that they did not want to invite us all to the traditional dinner that they give to those lucky ones when the short list is announced. Doubtless our partners would also have been invited and they would have needed nearly 800 prawn cocktails. And that’s just for starters.

The movie has a sub-plot provided by a an American Film Library who chose that same day to send a unit to the bridge to update their stock footage. This is done, it would appear, once every ten years. I would dearly like to know what happened next, there.

I am hoping that it will be possible, one day, to produce a full-length documentary about the Happening and will be happy to make my footage available to a TV production company for that purpose. It was, in all truth, a very special event. Unique in Art, unique in the history of London Bridge and memorable for everyone who walked across the bridge that day. Even for those who attempted not to get involved. I say “attempted” because it is in the nature of a Happening that those who do not participate but are there when it happens are a part of it, whether they like it or not. The YouTube video will do more than bring back the moment. It also shows how we looked eleven years ago. Scary!

There is more about the Happening here.

This posting relates to an artistic happening that took place on London Bridge on 29 May 1998. There is a previous posting with an article from Antiques and Art Independent telling the story of the Happening here.

On the day a large number of commuters walking over the bridge donned cardboard ears bearing the words Art-iz-Us and were nominated for the Turner Prize. An important part of the preparation for the event was the setting up of a dedicated web site: www.londonbridge.29may.com. In 1998 this was a very novel approach - as, indeed, were the multiple Turner Prize nominations.

The web site advertised the coming artistic happening and commuters walking over the bridge every morning were advised where to log on by means of posters. In 1998 most computers were in offices and many people did not have one at home. Almost by definition, most of the 2000 + hits on the site came from offices in the City of London.

The web site generated an extensive and heady email correspondence which I downloaded to my hard disk just before the web site ceased to exist. In those days the word “gigabyte” for most of us was beyond contemplation and it was necessary to download files from the computer at regular intervals onto other media to create working memory. The chosen State-of-the-then-Art device was called Syquest and anyone who has had any experience of Syquest will know how awful the technology was and how hit and miss any back-up on Syquest proved to be. By the same token it was necessary to keep web files as light as possible so that they could be downloaded in a reasonably short space of time. For this reason there are two correspondence files. The first covers the build-up to the Happening when we (me and the people walking over London Bridge) were all getting very excited and the second begins a couple of days after the great moment when we were coming down from a high.

The tenth anniversary of the Happening will be next May. In anticipation I am going to put together a file of ephemera, pictures and press cuttings which will be posted here in due course. Who knows? Perhaps there will be a re-union.

First correspondence file:www.londonbridge.29may.com - Correspondence File to end May 1998
Second correspondence file:www.londonbridge.29may.com - Correspondence File June to September 1998