[6] Originally conceived as a site-specific video projection for Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea,[7] Play Dead; Real Time (2003) consists of two videos projected on two large screens showing a circus elephant named Minnie ponderously performing for an off-screen trainer in the empty, spacious, white-walled gallery room.

[5] The footage showing Minnie’s sequences of tricks is simultaneously presented in a front and a rear life-sized projection and on a monitor, with each one depicting the same event from a range of perspectives, including close-ups of the animal's eyes.

The feature-length film, which he co-directed with fellow artist Philippe Parreno and assembled from footage shot by seventeen synchronised cameras placed around the stadium in real time over the course of a single match,[9] premiered outside the competition of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival before screenings at numerous international venues.

In Phantom (2011), another collaboration with Wainwright, Gordon employs slow-motion film produced with a high-speed Phantom camera focusing on Wainright's eye — blackened with make-up, weeping, and glaring back at the viewer, echoing melodramatic performances by stars of the silent screen.

In 1993, he exhibited 24 Hour Psycho in the spaces of Tramway, Glasgow, and at Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

In 1996, Gordon was one of the artists invited to Skulptur Projekte Münster,[14] and in 1997 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.

Also in 2006, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York showed a retrospective of Gordon's work, called Timeline, which was curated by Klaus Biesenbach.

[15][16] Another 2006 retrospective was on view at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.

Play Dead; Real Time (2003) is co-owned by MMK Frankfurt and Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection.