"A massive white pneumatic fortress."

Michael Morris, 2002

Photograph by Matthew Antrobus

How we got to the castle is a long story; the project went through so many different changes. I do remember the meeting when we came up with the idea of the bouncy castle, of creating this massive white pneumatic fortress so big that it threatened to burst out of the Roundhouse. We wanted it to be squeezed in, this big white geometric soft plastic square that was bursting out of its iron ring. And we still didn't tell the press what we were doing. We worked with a company called Southern Inflatables from Hampshire who made children's bouncy castles for fairgrounds. They set about making what ended up making the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest in the world. It was massive, and on the walls was a text by Yukio Mishima that was to do with failure. It was printed - in white - onto the white walls. You'd stop to try and read it and of course you couldn't because you lost your balance.

The other element is the soundtrack. Joel Ryan was responsible for the roaring sound coming from speakers into the turrets and making an amazing piece that the public were convinced was interactive. But it wasn't - the sound was recorded in the Roundhouse and then it was processed and relayed back. It was a complex sound system - and when I think of that project I think of the sound as much as I do the physical nature and athleticism it brought out of people.