A large-scale installation by French multimedia artist Philippe Parreno opened at the Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern last night, the newest of the museum’s Hyundai Commissions. Interactive and immersive, Anywhen works as a kind of performance by constructing a series of different situations.
A changing soundscape, designed by sound artists Nicolas Becker and Cengiz Hartlap, fills up the space. Cast in the center of the room is a combination of acoustic panels, a screen, a grid of speakers, and a projector. It is thus also a collaborative work, all of whose elements come together as a series: the panel in the center, for instance, often displays a film of underwater creatures, or one of the famous actress and ventriloquist, Nina Conti.
Since the opening of the new Tate Modern this summer, Anywhen is the first installation to occupy the Turbine Hall as it now stands—at the center of the museum. It is free for the public to enter from various levels, and operates as a large open space that connects both the new museum to the old, and the outside to the inside. As though strolling through a park or public space, visitors to Anywhen, thus encounter fragments of sound, object, and film that appear and disappear with time.
But there’s much more to the installation then meets the eye, literally. For the six-month duration of the show, the installation will continue to evolve in patterns informed by micro-organisms.
Actively shaping the viewer’s experience, the micro-organisms have been coded to learn and react to elements of the commission through a bioreactor designed by scientists Jean-Baptiste Boulé and Nicolas Desprat. It claims to be an experience that evolves with time, and that will perhaps be joined by the work of several other artists.
Philippe Parreno, “Anywhen”, Hyunadai Commission, is on view at Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, from October 4 – April 2, 2017.