Arts and Design

Other Spaces / Transformer review – a mind-blowing rumble in the jungle


I’m sitting on a beanbag in a dark room, staring at a split-screen scored with apple-green blips and streaks of light that – much like a heart monitor – record signs of life. The date: 8 September 1994. The setting: Dzanga-Sangha national park, a marshy patch in the Central African Republic. The opening notes come courtesy of a chorus of insects, whose murmurs are soon joined by the territorial shrieks of a southern tree hyrax and the grunts of a western lowland gorilla. The cacophony builds to a climax, and – the moment we’ve all been waiting for – a solo rumble of African forest elephants, sloshing through water (it’s the wet season). Next, the ribbits of frogs and the chirps of a red-chested cuckoo, then the alarm calls of the greater spot-nosed monkey. The performance continues in much the same vein, animal species sounding both uncomfortably close and disappointingly far away, until – at last – it fades and the apple-green blips and streaks vanish from the screen.

The Great Animal Orchestra is the highlight of Other Spaces, three audiovisual installations by multidisciplinary collective United Visual Artists. Its conductor is ecologist Bernie Krause, who since the 1970s has been making sound recordings of various ecosystems and their residents. As well as works of art, these soundscapes are a vital means of observing shifts in the world’s remaining wild habitats. Krause archives them, we’re told, in case any of the animal ensembles fall silent – which, because of human activities, has so far happened in 50% of those in his collection.

Watch a trailer for
United Visual Artists’ work at Other Spaces

The first installation, Our Time, explores the way we interact with space – and, by extension, the world around us – up close. A row of lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling swing side to side, front to back, in sync and not. A shoddy hypnotist’s pendulum, perhaps, but stand in the centre of the room and you’ll soon find yourself swaying in time to both the kinetic sculptures and Mira Calix’s electronic soundtrack.

Vanishing Point, the third installation, takes this exploration a step further – forcing us to reckon with a space manipulated by an invisible other. Inspired by the mathematical drawings of Renaissance artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, the laser installation uses perspective as a restructuring mechanism. A small, dark room is sliced and diced by beams of bright-white light projected from an unknown vanishing point. The thread-like rays may look delicate, but there’s something menacing about the way they course across your body.

Running in conjunction with Other Spaces is a group show of new work by artists curated by Jefferson Hack. Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder invites us to dip down beneath 180 The Strand into the basement, to visit a series of created environments by newly commissioned and debut artists.

Doug Aitken’s video installation New Era explores the invention of the mobile phone and the way it has loosened our grip on reality. Inside a hexagonal chamber of mirrors, screens and speakers, we’re introduced to US engineer Martin Cooper – the now 90-year-old who led the team that built the first mobile phone – who declares, repeatedly: “I made a phone call.” A kaleidoscope of sweeping landscapes, manmade highways and myriad communication systems reflects our immersive relationship with handheld devices and the hyperconnected age in which we live.

Lawrence Lek’s installation Temple Ost.



Night out … Lawrence Lek’s installation Temple Ost.

A similar temporal and spatial dislocation occurs in Lawrence Lek’s Temple Ost, which uses CGI and 3D animation to connect the building with nearby Temple tube station. Virtual partygoers parade from the underground station to the cavernous space beneath the creative hub for a night out. Elsewhere, Korakrit Arunanondchai gives us a glimpse of Thai folklore and culture with a trio of videos that weave shots of his grandparents, nature, Thai and American protesters, and computer hard drives. And Jenn Nkiru’s Rebirth is Necessary – a rhythmic film with roots in Afro-surrealism – splices new and archival footage and recordings to create a dialogue between past and present expressions of black identity.

The final work is a collaboration between artists Sophia Al-Maria and Victoria Sin. The first of two encounters sees a female figure wearing a yellow bikini, coat and sandals telling us – rather forcefully – to breathe. Sounds simple, but the effect is strangely soothing. Speaking of which, you could spend hours in these free, otherworldly exhibitions, soaking up the sounds, sights and scents. Just remember to wrap up – it’s cold, especially in the basement.

Other Spaces and Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder are at 180 The Strand, London, until 8 December.



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