30 | New Scientist | 16 November 2019
Exhibition
24/7: A wake-up call for
our non-stop world
Somerset House, London
Until 23 February 2020Book
The Art of Rest: How to find
respite in the modern age
Claudia Hammond
CanongateIN THE darkened entrance, an
array of blinding lamps switches
on and off, and from a video wall
projection you can hear a remote-
controlled helicopter hovering
noisily above the head of a
sleeping artist covered in blankets.
Walking past this work – Bett
by Roman Signer – you come to
a room behind black curtains. In
the darkness, footage plays on
another wall, featuring reams
of wires and computer hardware
bathed in red light. There was a
background techno drone with
occasional tappings and whispers.
This is art duo Ubermorgen.com’s
Chinese Coin (Red Blood), a
depiction of our new industrial
revolution – the “mining” of the
cryptocurrency bitcoin in China.
Moving on, you find watch
faces: a display of small watches
in a work called Sense of Time by
Ted Hunt, and a wall-sized screen
shows Self -Portrait as Time by
Marcus Coates, a wristwatch face
looming while the artist’s giant
finger traces its ticking second
hand. Nearby, a video (Order of
Magnitude by Benjamin Grosser)
shows Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg. “More”, he says.
“More,” and “much more”,
“another billion”, “another
2 billion”, “more”. Zuckerberg
and his incantation are on an
endless loop. To which circle
of hell have I descended?How the world got wired
Go into overdrive at an exhibition about our sleep-deprived times, then chill
by exploring the importance of rest, says Shaoni BhattacharyaAll this during my early
morning visit, under a cold, blue
light resembling the moon. It is
too much. But my initial disquiet
is what the curators of 24/7, a new
exhibition at London’s Somerset
House, want with their disturbing,
thought-provoking venture.
“We have made the exhibition
deliberately immersive, with
moments that have quite strong
resonance you should feel in yourbody,” says curator Sarah Cook,
professor of information studies
at the University of Glasgow, UK.
Works like Chinese Coin, says
Cook, aim “to disrupt your sense
of time”. While the first section of
the show, called “Day and Night:
The wreckage of the day”, certainly
is dislocating, the next four take usViews Culture
©^ STE
PH
EN
CHUNG^ FOR
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ET
HOUSEof afternoon and sunset.
After the deliberately fraught
start, visitors enter a zone that
explores our relationship with
rest. Japanese artist Tatsuo
Miyajima’s Life Palace (Tea Room)
is a welcome change. Visitors
are encouraged to “drink time
rather than tea” in this meditative
isolation chamber, dark except for
the random appearances of blue,
alarm clock-style LED numbers,
which blink on and off and seem
to float around in the darkness.
Another section reminds us
that we are subject to constant
surveillance – not a new concept,
as philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s
18th-century designs for a
Panopticon prison remind
us. There is even surveillance
nostalgia, with the original “diary
room” chair and footage from the
first series of the groundbreakingon a sensory journey that plays
with time, rest and activity, with
our relationships with technology,
work and play, with each other
and with the natural environment.
The show’s inspiration comes
from a 2013 book, 24/7: Late
capitalism and the ends of sleep
by art critic Jonathan Crary,
which explores the relationships
between always-on culture,
consumption and sleep. This
tension is brilliantly captured
by Microserfs author Douglas
Coupland in Slogans for the 21st
Century (pictured above), and Alan
Warburton’s series of 3D-scanned
self-portraits, Sprites (see right),
which show him imitating work-
time naps of his colleagues in a
Beijing visual effects studio.
With no natural light, the
gallery cleverly harnesses artificial
light to bolster the themes in each
section, and their sensory and
psychological impact. From
the moon’s cold light, we move
through functional strip lighting
of a working day, to the warm glowTop: Douglas Coupland’s
Slogans for the 21st
century. Right: Alan
Warburton’s Sprites“ Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg
appears. ‘More’, he
says, ‘much more’,
‘another billion’ ”