Fay Weldon may have opted to be writer in residence at the Savoy Hotel in London, but Will Self has chosen a different kind of residency. For two weeks he has been living and writing in an unheated flat on the 20th storey of a soon-to-be-demolished block of flats in north Liverpool.

Linked to Liverpool's International Biennial, Further Up in the Air is a long-running work of art in which 12 artists have lived in one of the barren flats, creating art loosely connected to the forthcoming demolition of the building, which is scheduled for the end of next year. Fifty residents are still in the building.

Self opted to live in one of the more spartan apartments, without electricity or heating, a very literal embodiment of a writer's garret. There are two desks, a manual typewriter, a dictionary and a coffee pot.

He plans to finish his short story by tomorrow; it will be on view then and on Saturday.

North Liverpool has suffered particularly from the demise of industry since the 70s and 80s, and the population has dropped to such an extent that many of the tower blocks of that era are now superfluous.

Neville Gabie, co-creator of the exhibition, said: "This tower block is the last of its kind in the area. The exhibition is not a protest against it, but a way of chronicling the change of city living and the demise of high rise living."

Self's short story is probably not the most positive one about Liverpool: phrases such as "wet smears of humanity" and "cooking up crack cocaine" feature heavily. But his presence has given the project publicity. Not all of it is welcome. Pauline Daniels, who lives next to Self's flat, complained that fans had been posting letters through her door "at all hours of the night". All Fay Weldon has to contend with is ordering room service.