5 Minute Break

2001, 4:35 min, color, sound

While artist-in-residence in the north tower of the World Trade Center, Lucas was given a tour of the center's sub-basement. 5 Minute Break is the eerie artifact of that tour. An animated woman roams the WTC sub-basement like a benign Lara Croft, negotiating an underground maze of empty stairwells, faded graffiti, hulking machinery, and discarded trash. Lucas' vision of a haunted netherworld of dead-ends and detritus beneath the trade center charts a lost realm, frozen in time. The tape is dedicated to Robert Lynch, a Port Authority property manager who conducted the sub-basement tour, and who died in the towers' collapse.

In memory of Robert "Bob" Lynch. Thanks: Kathy Brew, Jennifer Charron, Moukhtar Kocache, Bob Lynch, Joe McKay. Support: Thundergulch and LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), as part of the World Views studio program at 1 World Trade Center, New York.