Although artists use of the moving image is commonplace in the 1990s, and the gallery, as opposed to the cinema, is often the site for much innovative media work, what distinguishes McQueen from his peers is his craftsmanship and command of his medium, using primarily 35mm and 16mm B&W filmstock_a rarity outside of cinema circuits. His attention to his work's presentation_usually large, floor-to- ceiling continuous projections on bare gallery walls, recalls the Expanded Cinema movement of the 1970s. McQueen insists his interests are less in the formal properties of film and more in the medium's poetic qualities: "By poetic I mean how images can transcend what they are and become something else, so that you look again at what's going on."

Asked how he came to exhibit exclusively in art spaces, he replied "It came from the work itself and the best way of showing it. Had the best situation been TV then I'd have gone for that, but it wasn't. My main concern was making a space for the work to be seen how I wanted it seen, and the only places that can embrace this and enable the general public to visit, are institutions like the ICA."

Like his earlier installations, Deadpan (1997) was shot on B&W 16mm film, edited on video using Avid, then transferred to laser-disc for continuous projection.

THe viewing space is box-like, the larger-than-life moving image completely fills one wall and, by extension, completely occupies the field of vision of its spectators, who wander in at will, often staying to watch successive cycles of Deadpan's four minute sequence. Inspired by a 1920s Buster Keaton comedy, in which a house falls on top of Keaton who survives unscathed thanks to an open window which exactly matches the ground on which he stands, Deadpan features McQueen himself, standing unflinching and oblivious as the gable- end of an A-frame house crashes repeatedly about his ears. An incredibly dangerous gag, as McQueen agrees, having restaged this episode 18 times for his film crew: had the window alignment been out by even a fraction it could have meant untold injury "It wasn't a case of redoing the gag, the point was how can one examine this blink-of-a-second thing? Just look at it. It was throwaway in the Keaton film, but it had a very strong effect on me."

Repeated takes of the wall falling over himf from various distances and cameraangles, serve to accentuate the tension of the piece. The absence of sound intensifies its durational aspect: we witness McQueen's steady concentration, we see the reverberations of the crash, but we don't hear it, and what seems like slow- motion is in fact 'real' time. Or time slowed- down by the viewer's perception within the installation's space-time continuum.

Drumroll (1998) is a new departure for McQueen in that it employs not only video but sumptuous colour and sound..... The full text can be found in bfm (Issue 5).