The Skinny on... Jimmy Cauty
K-Foundation's Jimmy Cauty brings his new work ESTATE, a dystopian model village experience featuring four abandoned concrete tower blocks at 1:24 scale housed in a 40-foot shipping container, to Scotland this month
What’s your favourite place to visit and why?
I like to visit Brenda, the teenage Queen of the Iceni Tribe who lives in Iceni Heights. All the other kids are scared of her but she gives me advice and sometimes a swig of her lemonade.
Favourite food to cook in lockdown and why?
During the lockdown Brenda showed us how to hot-wire a microwave to the National Grid, we would roast wild bats (just for fun, they were not edible).
Favourite colour and why?
Blue because that’s the colour we paint ourselves when we go on a tower block raid.
Who was your hero growing up?
Brenda because she was older than the rest of us and she had a scooter and fluorescent green eyes.
Whose work inspires you now?
Brenda because she draws spiral patterns and maths equations on the concrete walls.
What three people would you invite to your virtual dinner party and what are you cooking?
What is a dinner party? I would invite Brenda and her twin cousins Flora and Fauna. The shop has still not been re-built so not sure what we would eat. I heard there were still some crisps left in Watch Tower 4.
What’s your all-time favourite album?
What is an album?
What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?
I saw the news once, they were saying Brenda was a bad person. I hated that.
What book would you take to a seemingly endless period of government-enforced isolation?
Harry Potter and the Tower Block Revolution.
Who’s the worst?
I am the worst, that’s why I’m locked up in Camp Delta-Zulu.
When did you last cry?
7.59 pm, crying is not allowed after 8 o’clock.
What are you most scared of?
Brenda says one day the Children of the Aftermath will rise up and overthrow the state, but what if we fail?
When did you last vomit and why?
I haven’t tried that yet.
Tell us a secret?
Brenda says that some kids in Iceni Heights killed a pensioner in Roman Point and hid the body in the water tank but she definitely wasn’t involved.
Which celebrity could you take in a fight?
Amber Rudd says the Iceni Tribe will be wiped out in the coming battle for ESTATE but Brenda says we will win; I’m not so sure. Rudd has the Chinooks and sonic weapons; Brenda says she found a cave where Jesus lives and he will help us.
If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be?
A radioactive fire-breathing pangolin/bat mutation.
How do you stay inspired by the world when you are isolated from it?
Our motto in Camp Delta-Zulu is ‘PLAY TO OBEY'. That inspired me on long months of solitary confinement.
Jimmy Cauty's ESTATE tours the UK throughout 2021
North Edinburgh Arts, Edinburgh, 28 May-26 Jun, Thu-Fri, 10am-4pm, Sat, 10am-1pm. Booking essential via northedinburgharts.co.uk
Platform, The Bridge, Easterhouse, Glasgow, 28 Jun-30 Jul platform-online.co.uk
A programme for ESTATE Edinburgh, SPECTACLE, is available at societyofspectacles.com
Further information on ESTATE can be found at l-13.org/projects/jimmy-cauty/estate
An ESTATE Edinburgh Spotify playlist can be heard here
jamescauty.com/work/the-k-foundation/