The latest large-scale commission for Tate Modern’s famous Turbine Hall features huge helium balloon fish that float around the space as if in a giant aquarium.
The gallery’s new commission by French artist Philippe Parreno – Anywhen – transforms the cavernous hall into an experience that guides the public through changing stages of light, sound and moving elements.
The lights in the hall are controlled and activated according to different sequences, while another moving light casts shadows throughout the hall – and a large central canopy covered in lights is suspended above a bridge overhead.
Different sounds are broadcast around the space to blur the feelings of interior and exterior, public and private and natural and technological – while vertical and horizontal acoustic panels, a screen, a grid of speakers and a projector come together in different configurations, and from time to time they present a film featuring a stage ventriloquist and underwater creatures.
The large fish float freely round the hall, carried by breezes blowing through the space.
Anywhen is free for the public to enter from different levels and directions and is the first commission to respond to the Turbine Hall’s new position at the centre of the museum, following the opening of the new Tate Modern earlier this year.
Philippe has collaborated with other visual artists to create the installation, working with Liam Gillick on a moving light entitled Another Day With Another Sun, while Tino Seghal and Isabel Lewis worked with Philippe on the dramatic composition.
The sound was been designed by Nicolas Becker with Cengiz Hartlap – while actress, comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti features in the film.
Philippe Parreno: Anywhen, the Hyundai Commission 2016, will be at the Tate Modern until April 2 2017.