A fine line between art and the impossible

Almost inevitably, the question has to be "why?" And the answer is simply "for art". Rewind two, maybe three years, to a meeting where film-maker/video artist Catherine Yass is talking through concepts and future projects with James Lingwood. Lingwood is co-director of Artangel, a visionary London-based organisation that commissions new artworks - especially ones that have curiosity, ambition and a willingness to experiment as part of their protocol. Yass has already pursued her fascination with the vertiginous by sending a remote-controlled plane - with camera - spooling round and round the BBC headquarters in London. Now she's describing an idea called High Wire that depends on capturing the experience of someone walking through air.

For her idea to become a reality, she needs a high-wire walker and a tower-block location. The first, perhaps surprisingly, proved easier to find. Didier Pasquette himself reckons there are only 20 or so high-wire walkers in the world. He doesn't add that he is one of the true greats, but past feats include crossing the Thames (meeting and passing a colleague halfway) and ushering in the millennium by walking along (or rather above) the Greenwich Meridian in northern France. Yass's outline caught his imagination, not least because a walk between city tower blocks offered a different perspective from the more usual historic buildings and tourist landmarks.

At first, everyone assumed the high-rise flats would be in London. "We had this clear image," says Lingwood, "of finding these streets in the sky', with Didier - camera on his head - threading his way above some gritty London townscape. But there were so many issues. Police. Health and safety. Permissions. Then someone suggested Glasgow. So Catherine, Didier and I went to the Red Road flats. And we spoke, directly, to some of the key people involved - namely the concierges. There was some astonishment, but absolutely none of this it's impossible' attitude. Or hunting about for reasons why it shouldn't or couldn't happen. We were welcomed with the most positive mindset, and they've been such allies to us over the past year."

Another ally has been Artangel's co-producers Glasgow International (Gi). Their 2008 festival programme will be launched on Saturday, and among the list of special events and commissions will be the premiere of High Wire - meaning the video element that Pasquette will capture during this weekend's walk - in April 2008.

Francis McKee, Gi's curator, says Pasquette's walk makes him think of what he calls Glasgow's current mood of confidence. "It is, I think, a beautiful, symbolic piece. There's a sense of risk-taking and ambition taking a look at a place that's off the beaten track for most people and finding something surprising there. Hopefully, down the line, it'll become some weird urban legend. People will just remember this man walking across the flats."

Pasquette nods in agreement. "Yes, I think - I hope - the people at the flats will remember this. A moment that is not really normal, somebody walking between their homes - but not on the ground! That, months later, they will look out of their window and, like a page in a book, they will turn their thoughts back and remember, My God a man walked through the air here."

It should be said that walking through air wasn't Pasquette's first career choice. He was seriously immersed in biology studies when his college sports teacher replaced football and basketball with gymnastics and circus skills. By the end of the year, he was hooked and auditioning for France's National Centre for Circus Arts. He hasn't looked back - or down - since. Ask him if passing planes are a distraction and he'll cheerfully say no. "After circus school I toured with Archaos and there you had all kinds of noise. Chainsaws, cars crashing, motorcyles, explosions - a lot of chaos while I was walking, so a plane in the sky is not a problem. But a dog walking under my wire: that's different because it is in my field of vision."

It's his own personal outlook that Catherine Yass has asked him to record, using a head-cam. "Oh, Catherine," he says, wryly. "She asks me to look only straight ahead. Usually when I am on the wire, I like to look around, but she wants this line of vision, like a stare. No backwards and forwards. It will be a pure act. And I think it will be poetic, this journey to join one point to another in the air."

Meanwhile, on the ground, Artangel's Tom Dingle will be masterminding the nuts and bolts of High Wire. A team of scaffolders and engineers will connect numbers 63, 93 and 123 Petershill Drive with lengths of wire, then secure them with guy ropes to the ground, after which a second team will check it all out before the health and safety people give the thumbs-up. "We've got security in place, too," says Dingle, "but it's been just as important to keep local residents informed and reassured about the event. I've personally knocked on doors and spoken with people, but they often know as much as I do, because the children who've been making fliers in a workshop programme have been talking about nothing else. And that's great. We want everyone to feel involved."

Indeed, you don't need to go sky-high to participate. Artangel are hoping folk will take pictures or video recordings of the event, then submit them for possible inclusion in the final installation. Details of how to do this, and how to get there, are on the website. One special request, however - please use public transport to travel to the flats, because space is at a premium.

• www.high-wire.org.uk