“This was part of a work commissioned by LVA to utilise a video in a window of the Air Gallery during an exhibition of video art entitled ‘Scanners’. I was one of, I think’ 4 artists invited to participate. Each would supply 3 channels of video images to be incorporated into looped sequences which would be displayed on 9 monitors. Before starting on the work I became very excited about the possibilities of making images which would link across the monitors in any direction, and with what configuration would be most effective in choosing which channel went to which monitor. When the invited artists were brought together and called upon for suggestion as to the configuration of the video wall, the cry came and ‘Random!’. By that time I had spent so long with the permutations that I realised that it was impossible to have a random relationship that actually looked random and had decided to make a piece which would work whatever the configuration. Hence the strands of barbed wire which join the monitors together in a grid. That I chose barbed wire rather than garlands of flowers probably reflects the times and my response to them, however I did endevour to lighten the piece by it’s conclusion (it was very short) not by introducing any flowers but melting ice and lizards. The whole piece was edited to Elvis Costello’s ‘Watching the Detectives’, but you wouldn’t know it.” Mick Hartney, March 2008