Philippe Parreno: Anywhen

Exhibition at the Tate Modern, Hyundai Commission

The ceiling is falling? The turbine hall became alive full of floating kites yet silent.
Lights pulse removing any sense of time, days or months could elapse as orchestrated melodies create a army of aural senses that play you in. A reoccurring theme in todays art is the influence of abstract geometry, moving abstract sculpture has a way of reflecting the mood of an environment. With such a grand screen the light emitting from it forces an epileptic response, rubb your eyes its real and mind your step the concrete gray carpet is home to the public.

One of the first youth engaging installiations that provokes public imagination as light moves along an arching rod across the space. Descending as well as ascending, swimming through the space, resting on the carpeted floor pondering alien intellegence in the darkness above. The mesmerizing and unmissable journey of evolving situations the bigger question is can you view it all? Sitting in a state of astonishment and constant surprise the building becomes a living thing, ripples and rivers of pulsing lights illuminte the darkness above, the ambient sounds echo through the cavernous atmosphere electrifying the hall to life.

Philippe Parreno collaborated with Douglas Gordan on a collaboration titled; Zidane a 21st century portrait, the semblance in the portrait acts as an alien force exhilarating and entertaining the public. Parreno alienates the subject changing roles from the viewer to the viewed and question the motivation behind whats starring into your soul. The method used to allow external interfearance to only influence and improve the atmosphere, Parreno raised the bar on artificle experiences to new heights. This instllation acts as a response, a living being, using forest speakers volume increase to drone out the sound of London rainfall as if a response to the world outside.

Infant voices echo, with the subject off camera partaking in invisible actions, add elements like rippling colours, graceful and delicate movements using cutting edge multi sensory technology, seismograph monitors the movement of the tectonic plates beneath to constantly adapt the installation. At the end of the film I heard, “Eternity in perpetuity,” she says. “There’s no way to stop the upcoming tragedy.” This line is the cliff hanger of Parreno’s project, both a feeling and a promise to reuinte.

REVIEW BY RICKE MARC ANTHONY