PUBLIC VIEW 5: THE HANGING MAN

The invitation card to this show is a photo of a man - arms by his side, feet encased in special footwear - hanging upside down from a ceiling. I invert the card so as to normalise the view but instead highlight the strangeness. The torso seems lengthened, the neck shrunken and the sinuses and forehead bloated. He looks more dead than alive.

I go along to the show at the Museum of Installation. The first room is empty, except for a pair of speakers kept aloft on opposite walls by a steel Acroprop. I wait for a sound from either of them ... "Let me down," comes from one speaker. Shortly followed by "Don't let me down," from the other. The same two lines repeat, differently spaced and pronounced. Downstairs, a dozen TV sets have been stuck to the ceiling. On each is the image of a man hanging upside down. He doesn't look as distorted as on the card, perhaps because I can't turn him the right way up for scrutiny. The hanging man is swaying or twitching slightly, so it is a moving image, not a still. And in each case he's wearing a different combination of shirt and trousers. From a vantage point in the smaller of the two rooms I can see four suspended Carl von Weilers, although the one wearing a green T-shirt and white trousers in the bottom corner of a monitor is only a reflection from the facing screen. "Don't let me down," is distinctly audible from the room directly above. I won't let him down.

This installation seems to deal with endurance. In the other ground- floor room there is a single speaker and a monitor. The monitor shows a man with a wooden "gun" being drilled. The voice of the drill sergeant barking out instructions is relentless. The response from Private von Weiler is immediate but seems a bit shaky. How long has this "By the right ... Turn!" business been going on? It's been going on and on. It'll be going on now, though I can't hear the orders (the artist's own voice?) from my resting place in the basement.

Being upside down is hard on the body. Located so low, the heart has to work against gravity rather than with it, and has to pump much harder than usual to get blood to the legs and feet. In doing so, a lot of blood must flow through the face. Day after day after day ... Varicose veins on cheeks and forehead? "Let me down," pleads an anguished voice. I can't let you down, mate.

Home, I flick through the catalogue with its scribbled diagrams, loosely- connected paragraphs and high-powered quotes. I'm reconsidering the invitation card when I realise I may have got the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps the show is about the viewer's perception rather than the artist's perseverance. I think the televisions were hanging upside-down from the ceiling. If they'd been put the right way up, then so would the figure. So the figure may have been recorded simply standing on the floor. Surely not! - there's still a demand for artists who conspicuously suffer for their work ... For months, Carl von Weiler has - or has not - been hanging upside down in his studio: drinking coffee (and just about swallowing it) ... doing sit- ups (Christ, it ain't easy) ... and thinking about sex (the sound of his heart pounding between his ears). Don't let yourself down, Carl.

I phone the artist's studio to ask a question, but there's no answer. So I get back on the train to Deptford ... The monitors are, in fact, the right way up. And I reckon from the hang of his clothes and the constant swaying motion that the artist is indeed upside-down. So it is about the individual's hopeless perseverance. I recall a Beckett quote from the catalogue: "But now I do not wander any more, anywhere any more, and indeed I scarcely stir at all, and yet nothing is changed." But isn't it a bit late to be still waiting for Godot?

Home again; I phone the artist's studio. The call is answered. "Carl von Weiler?" I venture. "Let ... me ... down," croaks an end-of-tether voice. A picture comes to mind of the artist with the phone pressed to his poor topsy-turvy head. I assure him I'll do what I can. But what can I do? "Don't let me down," comes back, sure and strong.

He hangs up.

Carl von Weiler, Museum of Installation, SE8 (0181 692 8778), to 14 November.

'Personal Delivery', Duncan McLaren's book on contemporary art, is out now from Quartet (pounds 12).