Sunflower Seeds

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's installation Sunflower Seeds: a vast, grey seed-sea. There is an immediate reaction: is this about the significance, or insignificance of humanity? What can you achieve as just one simple seed, and is there any real meaning to individuality? The setting, the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern further multiplies the sense of scale: not only are you one seed in ten million, but even the ten million are tiny specks of dust within a vast machine.
I resisted the Philip Dick-inspired urge to create a "fake fake" by adding real sunflower seeds.
Not only are the seeds artificial, they are neither robotic nor sweat-shop produce but each one has been hand-crafted and painted by someone. That's awe-inspiring.
For Weiwei the sunflower seed has a particular meaning: sharing of this snack has been a form of street comradeship under an oppressive regime and from there it becomes a symbol of resistance. If proof of the significance of this work is needed: Weiwei remains a political prisoner in China.

UPDATE 23.6.11 BBC News reported today that Weiwei has been released by the Chinese authorities following a "confession" apparently relating to tax irregularities.

The Black Hole

Miroslaw Balka’s Turbine Hall installation, How It Is, takes the form of a giant cargo crate. Although one end is completely open, the lighting arrangement means that as you enter the crate you quickly pass into complete darkness or perhaps into another, vast universe. Dimensions are warped in the darkness – the interior definitely feels bigger than the exterior. Eventually the effect fades as your eyes become accustomed to the gloom, but for a short while you have the experience of taking a step into the unknown.
How It Is also reminded me of a unique punishment described in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series, a device that allows the victim to perceive themselves in the context of the entire universe, creating a sense of inferiority. The punishment was apparently ineffective when it was given to Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Different people responded to the experience in different ways – some wander randomly while others hug the walls or stand in one place. I was impressed by a young art student who was sitting deep in the dark interior, sketching the scene.

Walking In My Mind

The Hayward Gallery's summer exhibition for 2009, Walking In My Mind, features several artists' attempts to portray the inside of their own minds. I like installation art in general - there's something very appealing about being able to walk into a picture. Installation art is also a perfect medium for this particular topic. In one sense, any installation, or any art form, is a representation of at least part of the mind of the artist - after all, where else can it have come from? However many of these exhibits take a very literal approach and attempt to portray both the content and the process of mind.

Jason Rhoades' work, The Creation Myth, for example fills a room with a bizarre, Heath Robinson-like machine representing the creative process - there's a trail of cables taking you through a series of sub-processes. It's a disturbing exhibit; sound, movement and smoke effects keep you uneasy, and Rhoades uses a lot of pornographic imagery - this has led to some discussion in the press but is completely appropriate in the context of portraying the range of thoughts that pass through a human mind, or the creative process; to my mind it also makes the work honest and personal.

Yoshitomo Nara also takes a literal approach, building a one-room house storing memories and personal, meaningful possessions, while you can explore Thomas Hirschhorn's mind in the form of a network of caves made from cardboard and tape. Yayoi Kusama creates a more surreal, beautiful experience - walking into a red and white polka dot universe which extends onto this balcony:

There are also exhibits by Charles Avery who continues to expand his fictional Island, including this artefact of it's culture - a mysterious, dimensionally transcendent cabinet.

Science fiction also grapples with this theme from time to time - say, Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher where an alien presence banishes a character into his own mental space, or The Cell, where a psychiatrist literally enters her patient's thoughts to diagnose and heal them. It's a difficult concept to make convincing, just as it's difficult to invent realistic dreams or simulate insanity, and both these examples are flawed. This exhibition succeeds because each installation seems to communicate something real, and surprisingly frank, about the mind of its' creator.

Art 2.0 part 2: "Streetpianos"

Over the past month Luke Jerram's streetpianos project has placed thirty pianos in public places in and around London, open for anyone to play. The project comes to an end this weekend in London and the pianos will now be removed and sold.

I've particularly enjoyed this Art 2.0 experience: looking for the pianos took me on a tour of familiar and unfamiliar London, and it's been fun watching the mini-events, friendships and collaborations form spontaneously around the pianos, playing or singing along myself, and meeting other piano-seekers of all abilities. Different locations have drawn City professionals or citizens, travellers or tourists, giving the crowd around each piano it's own feel.

I'd like to acknowledge D-n-K, the awesome musical trio that were aiming to produce a charity album on all 30 pianos in one day; the lovely Korean illustrator who accompanied my Bridge Over Troubled Water at the Millenium Bridge; the young girl whose parents couldn't tear her away from the Liverpool Street piano; the duo who filled the Plaza with Hero; a chance meeting and chat with fellow blogger and underground chef MsMarmiteLover at Devonshire Court, and everyone I met who also just felt like having a go.

Streetpianos and One&Other have in common an artist who, instead of creating the art themselves, is facilitating involvement by hundreds of users. Of the two, Streetpianos feels more spontaneous. Both Art 2.0 projects say something about our willingness both to participate in creativity and to watch others; the friendly supportive crowds make these events very different from the sinister world of reality TV as there's no competitive side. Streetpianos is a nomadic festival moving from city to city and I look forward to a return to London some day.

Art 2.0 part 1: "One&Other"

Over the past decade the Internet has shifted from owner-generated to user-generated content (Web 2.0 - blogs, wikis, video sharing, social networking, auctions, Squidoo lenses etc.) Some recent art events in London point to a similar trend - instead of creating their own content artists are creating spaces to facilitate creativity by hundreds of users.

Anthony Gormley's Art 2.0 installation, One&Other, has taken over the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square, where members of the public, chosen by lottery, are hoisted up to the plinth and make use of it for an hour. So far a popular use has been charity or environmental campaigning; however other plinth users have sung and played guitar, bassoon or other instruments, photographed people in the crowd, or written random slogans on a chalkboard. It's YouTube - on a stick.

This morning saw singer-songwriter voluntas on the plinth with a series of witty, sometimes bawdy and very original songs. voluntas is lift consultant and self-taught guitarist Michael Bottomley IRL; his wife and daughter were present to give moral support and record the event, and he drew a small but appreciative crowd.

As a work of art One&Other is engaging and entertaining. Anthony Gormley is an artist who usually puts himself into his artwork in a very genuine way - often literally as in the case of his many body-casting installations. Here participants are sharing in the same experience of self-projection. The Trafalgar Square plinth is a good public space for this kind of event even though there's a slight sense of publicity stunt; for this reason though it may not be the best gallery in which to hang a Gormley.

Only Happy When It Rains

Sci-fi inspired the current Turbine Hall installation at the Tate Modern - TH.2058 by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Many previous TH installations have a kind of sci-fi edge to them - for example the first in the series was Louise Borgeouis's giant spider Maman; they're also the more playful side of modern art, recent installations including a series of metal slides and a giant crack in the floor.

For TH.2058 the Turbine Hall has been converted into a shelter, complete with yellow and blue bunk beds, to protect Londoners from a perpetual rainstorm 50 years in the future. Sharing the space with the humans are giant versions of other works of art - including an even larger re-make of Maman, and the skeleton of some extinct mammal. At one end The Last Film is playing - a collage of film clips including sequences from some sci-fi classics including THX 1138, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Solaris, Soylent Green and so on.

The attention to detail makes walking through the shelter extremely evocative. Strange robotic insects stick to the walls with coloured lights on their backs. Books are littered around on the bunk beds, you can pick them up and leaf through. Naturally they include War of the Worlds and The Drowned World, as well as other apocalyptic classics. A radio is bolted to one of the bunk beds - someone is still broadcasting from somewhere else in the world. As you walk towards the exit the sound of dripping water gradually grows into the sound of the rainstorm outside.

Where are the people? Gallery staff are present wearing fluorescent jackets so could be the marshalls; otherwise the inhabitants have disappeared, leaving their books behind - or possibly we are cast as the survivors, getting used to our new living arrangements. The advantage of the Turbine Hall as an artistic space is that the artist can create really immersive experiences - much better than virtual reality - so this was my experience. The radio was a particularly poignant touch.

The descriptive leaflet explains that this is not purely a work of sci-fi but also continues themes Gonzales-Foerster has been working on over the last twenty years - as well as being a response to other works of art including those recreated here. This is still a cool experience for a sci-fi fan and, like the best art, evokes all sorts of emotions and thoughts as you pass through its shadow.