Photo: 30km by Simon Faithfull. Courtesy Aspex Gallery.

Katy Morris went along to the Aspex Gallery to see what it's really like to have your head in the clouds.

The melancholy image taken from a weather balloon as it drifts up towards the edge of space forms the installation currently on show at the Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth.

The exhibition, by Simon Faithfull, is called 30km and is on show until June 19.

It starts with Simon Faithfull’s face filling the screen as the balloon tugs at the camera, trying to pull upwards.

Photo: 30km by Simon Faithfull. Courtesy Aspex Gallery.

When he lets go he gradually gets smaller and smaller and eventually disappears completely and is lost in the beautiful patchwork of colours that are created by the disappearing landscape.

After about half an hour the weather balloon reaches the edge of space and you can see the curve of the earth before the balloon finally explodes.

"It is a very, very simple idea but in the exhibition it becomes a much more overwhelming thing," explained Steve Fisher, exhibitions and marketing co-ordinator at the Aspex Gallery.

"It is something you can get absorbed by. Works like this encourage people to stay longer and get more involved."

The image from the camera is projected onto a circular screen and as it hovers in the darkened gallery, the picture moving slightly all the time, the effect is almost hypnotic.

Photo: 30km by Simon Faithfull. Courtesy Aspex Gallery.

Simon Faithfull says: "I wanted it to be a bit of an out of body experience. Looking back on yourself and seeing your own absence."

"But I hadn’t figured how anthropomorphic it would be for the camera. I am sad for this thing being sent off on a suicide mission."

The project involved high-tech equipment and Simon Faithfull worked with Dr Ilya V Eigenbrot from Imperial College and the Meteorological Department at Reading University to set up the film.

Also on display at the Aspex Gallery is Dreamland, a series of Simon Faithfull’s drawings of the sea front and funfair at Margate. Faithfull says that although the drawings are a very different medium from the projection they have a similar purpose: "They are both used to map places and journeys," he says.

Photo: 30km by Simon Faithfull. Courtesy Aspex Gallery.

You can also explore Simon Faithfull’s world on his web site, which is on an iMac at the gallery.

"It is partly how I exist as an artist," he explains. "There is a section that is all pieces made for the web. There is also an ideas section, it is a way for things that might never otherwise exist, to exist. The whole web site starts to become a work of fiction."

Faithfull stops here, looks a bit concerned and says: "Not total fiction of course - I didn’t make up my C.V."

30km is a Film and Video Umbrella touring exhibition, commissioned for the NOW Festival 2003. It is supported by the National Touring Programme of Arts Council England.

The projection will also be exhibited as part of Vanishing Point, a solo exhibition by Simon Faithfull at Pumphouse Gallery, Battersea Park in London from June 5 until July 25.