Bending spacetime in the basement is a short film of Grace Weir and astrophysicist Ian Elliott setting up an experiment to attempt to 'bend spacetime'. Using everyday ordinary materials, tin cans, lead, wood and string, they attempt to alter the forces or attractions between objects and demonstrate the universality of gravitation; that there is nothing special about the Earth that makes objects fall toward it. Everything attracts everything else. Shot as the experiment unfolds, the conversation taking place between Ian and Grace serves to explain the action taken. As they conduct their experiments and demonstrations they present a critique of the experimental process itself, an inexact activity that combines science rigorously with a host of other social and artistic acts.

Commissioned by Kathy Rae Huffman, for A Fine Line, Cornerhouse Manchester UK.

Essays:
Francis McKee, Experimental Conversations
Graham Parker, The shaggy dog in the river
Peter Ride, Viewed from the side