Sense of Space - Douglas Gordon

In researching art based around Psycho itself, I found the work of Douglas Gordon. He has created '24 Hour Psycho'. I have included pictures and exerts from the Guardian Arts archive to describe the work and the interview with the artist himself.


Link to Guardian Arts article on 24 Hour Psycho

Douglas Gordon's exhibition 'What Have I Done?' begins with a slowed-down version of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. A different take on a familiar classic, it introduces many of the important themes in Gordon's work: recognition and repetition, time and memory, complicity and duplicity, authorship and authenticity, darkness and light.


Douglas Gordon in his own words:
"24 Hour Psycho, as I see it, is not simply a work of appropriation. It is more like an act of affiliation... it wasn't a straightforward case of abduction. The original work is a masterpiece in its own right, and I've always loved to watch it. ... I wanted to maintain the authorship of Hitchcock so that when an audience would see my 24 Hour Psycho they would think much more about Hitchcock and much less, or not at all, about me...

A large mirror reflects Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho back at itself, beginning a game of spatial illusion and psychological instability that continues throughout the exhibition. Also caught in the mirror is a new work, Fog (2002). Using original footage shot by the artist, Fog takes its inspiration from a 19th-century Scottish novel by James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824).

I think it is very interesting that Gordon's aim is to elevae appreciation of Hitchcock's work by slowing down his piece: "I wanted to maintain the authorship of Hitchcock so that when an audience would see my 24 Hour Psycho they would think much more about Hitchcock and much less, or not at all, about me". This too, is our aim in creating 'The Bates Motel', to take away from what I believe is fairly unimaginative and poor sound for such a beautiful piece of cinematography, and make the sound match the brilliant tension created by Hitchcock visually.