
David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, 'Magic Mountain', sculptural diptych, 2008 (installation view). Photo: the artists.
Magic Mountain (Edward) and Magic Mountain (Jack) are a pair of sculptural works that utilise the perpetual gallery: a pre-cinematic ‘parlor trick’ in which the simple positioning of four mirrors in a square creates the illusion of infinite space. In these works, the artists craft their own interpretative dioramas; in Magic Mountain (Edward), the isolated suburban world of Tim Burton’s film Edward Scissorhands (1990) and in Magic Mountain (Jack), Stanley Kubrick’s terrifying maze from The Shining (1980). Contained within silhouetted mountains, the viewer is both immersed and removed – intimately looking down from a god’s-eye view. Each scene is a never-ending duplication of the same place, invoking the nightmare of inescapable internal worlds.

David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, 'Magic Mountain (Edward)', 2008 (detail). Photo: the artists.

David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, 'Magic Mountain (Jack)', 2008 (detail). Photo: the artists.

David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton, 'Magic Mountain', sculptural diptych, 2008 (installation view). Photo: the artists.