Closing/Close By represents a specific moment in the distinct careers of Imogen Stidworthy and Michael Curran. The interest in communication processes, language and sound throughout Stidworthy's work connects with Curran's explorations into the power of the image, its social meaning and relevance, to create Closing/Close By. The meeting point for both artists' work at the time was the drive to narrate. To this end the work explores a broad sense of narrative, integrating cinematic language and moving image with the possibilities of interpretation they present and their significance in the social and cultural constructions that populate our memory.

Closing/Close By presents the viewer with an abstracted narrative, where characters and locations are emptied of their meaning in the context of a specific film. This openness and purposeful ambiguity allow audiences to establish different readings and identify with personal elements of the narrative.

Integral to the making of the work was the process of generating and collecting various graphic materials. Excerpts from scripts, photographs, maps, etc., became central to the piece in its second restaging at Spacex Gallery, Exeter, 2000. Installed in a small room adjoining projection and monitors, these excerpts represented the flow of consciousness involved in the creative process. The catalogue in Gallery 2 was produced for the Spacex exhibition. The DVD was edited by Stidworthy in the following year. It would have been unfeasible to truly recreate the process-based nature of the original piece for Re: [Video Positive] due to the impossibility of retrieving the pinboard materials and reconstructing the mind maps they illustrated; the remaining few have been compiled in the album.

This collaboration was a one-off after which both artists have continued to work individually. In his films, installations and performances Michael Curran investigates the construction of fictions and characters. Imogen Stidworthy's installations, films and videos often deconstruct communication processes and other social interactions.