Douglas Gordon "5 year drive-by" 1995

«5 year drive-by» refers to the duration of the storyline of «The Searchers,» the Western by John Ford. With a guaranteed happy ending, John Wayne needs five years—therefore the installation’s title—to find a kidnapped child. The actual film lasts 113 minutes and the installation just under seven weeks. The rest is a matter of calculating: comparing the duration of the film’s storyline to the duration of the film, and having five years, seen in relationship to seven weeks as 113 minutes, yield roughly three minutes. Gordon stretches these three minutes to fill the entire 47 days of the exhibition. The projection moves single frame by single frame, so that a second of film time lasts approximately six hours. Viewers imagine a stationary shot, when what they see in reality is a sequence: before a picturesque Western landscape, a posse on horseback makes itself ready to ride down into the valley. With John Wayne most likely in the lead.