Douglas Gordon
«24 Hour Psycho»

«Realistically, no one can watch the whole of «24 Hour Psycho», which consists of Alfred Hitchcock’s film «Psycho» (1960) slowed down so that a single, continuous viewing lasts for twenty-four hours. While we can experience narrative elements in it (largely through familiarity with the original), the crushing slowness of their unfolding constantly undercuts our expectations, even as it ratchets up the idea of suspense to a level approaching absurdity.»

(source: Russell Ferguson, «Trust Me,» in: Douglas Gordon, Cambridge/MA, 2001, p. 16.)

Account of the artist’s statement «He [Douglas Gordon] went on to imagine that this ‹someone› might suddenly remember what they had seen earlier that day, later that night; perhaps at around 10 o’clock, ordering drinks in a crowded bar with friends, or somewhere else in the city, perhaps very late at night, just as the ‹someone› is undressing to go to bed, they may turn their head to the pillow and start to think about what they had seen that day. He said he thought it would be interesting for that ‹someone› to imagine what was happening in the gallery right then, at that moment in time when they have no access to the work.»

(source: Douglas Gordon on a hypothetical viewer of «24 Hour Psycho» in: David Gordon, «...by way of a statement on the artist’s behalf», in: Douglas Gordon: Kidnapping, Eindhoven, 1998, p. 83.)