London Part 1: The Tate Exhibition

The group met at Charing Cross to begin our research trip round London. 

We walked down to the Tate Modern to check out the new exhibition of Post Apocalyptic London. It was (as I find only the Tate Modern can only be) truly weird! As we walked in the entrance, the turbine hall was segregated off from the rest of the gallery as if in hiding. Walking through the plastic curtains, your presented with row upon row of iron bunk beds. No mattress and completely uncomfortable to sit on for a while. I'm a relatively small person and even i felt i had to crunch myself up to sit on one of these beds. Looking round, each bed was accompanied by a book, each a different story based on war or post apocalyptic states in a variety of languages. Hardly what you'd call inspiring/positive or happy reading, especially when you collate that with the huge twisted spider looming over the beds as if guarding those in the area. Along the walls, there were more smaller spiders whose lights flickered different colours. These metal versions seemed to be security, almost monitoring the situation, it was as if we were being watched. I began to think the exhibition was showing our nation being overthrown by another species and that we were in hiding or captured under close guard. Indeed the sounds of rain/dripping water and distant noises of bombs hinted the devastation was ongoing and indeed overhead, so wherever we were was underground. In the background was a looped video of different clips from a variety of disaster films (the full list can be viewed on my attached images) A giant sculpture of a rotting apple core stood in one of the corners as well as the bones of what looked like a giant cat. Above us were sculptures of what looked like mutated animals, not knowing exactly what they were but they looked like they had dog heads. The lighting used in the installation was overbearing and very bright. I could imagine that no one would get any sleep from the quality of it and its as if there were no dark areas in the space so there was no where to hide. 

Below are some of my photographs, sketches and notes I made during the visit:

              the weird mutated dogs that were suspended from the ceiling



isolation: a world of chaos could destabilize groups within society


the huge spider sculpture, i was experimenting with camera angles here trying to emphasize the sheer presence and size of the creature:



                   segregated from the rest of the world

the arrangement of the beds made people walk up and down the installation in lines, making it seem strict and regimental

I feel that the trip to the Tate was very beneficial in terms of experiencing an environment that was relevant to our project. It opened my mind the what an environment can make you feel from the arrangement of layout, the use of sound, lighting, environment objects and scale. Although I don't think this is quite the avenue the group would like to take the project it has been a worth while experience for me none the less and has given me a lot to think about when designing our environment.