iTate Modern · Bankside
The 11th annual Hyundai Commission fills the Turbine Hall with a site-specific installation by artist and composer Tarek Atoui, blending music, technology, sculpture and performance into multisensory environments.
Brass trumpets and drums hang over the Turbine Hall, and from a distance, the Telegraph's Alastair Sooke wrote, the softly lit drum skins look like "glowing planets or moons". Below, you can sit, stand or climb on rough stones that vibrate with the sound.
Atoui, born in Beirut in 1980, is a composer who builds his own instruments. Here wind moves through bamboo pipes to play shengs, mechanised mallets strike Korean drums, and microphones sample the room and play it back, so no two visits sound the same. On set evenings musicians perform inside it; Tate warns the hall is cold, so this is the one Tate visit where you shouldn't leave your coat at the cloakroom.
Critics split. The Guardian's Jonathan Jones called it a work to "lose yourself in for hours"; The Times heard a "Goop-y wellness-retreat backing track" and "a waste of a magnificent space". It's free (performances need a ticket), open until 21:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, and ear defenders are lent at the ticket desks.
Atoui בונה את כלי הנגינה שלו ופועל בתחום הסאונד ולא בתחום האובייקטים, ולכן היצירה שהוזמנה ממנו עבור Turbine Hall היא דבר ששומעים לפני שרואים.
The horns over the ramp
Three horns hang above the entrance ramp: an Uzbek karnai and two 3D-printed from sugar and bamboo dust, sounding across the whole hall.
The glowing drums
Large drum skins, softly lit and struck by mechanised mallets, that the Telegraph thought looked like planets or moons from across the hall.
The Issey Miyake textiles
Washi-and-cotton fabric hangs from ceiling to floor, moving with the hall's air currents and wired to generate bass through Atoui's synthesisers.
The vibrating stones
Rough stones on the floor that you can sit, stand or lie on while the sound runs through them.
The live sessions
On set evenings musicians improvise inside the installation, with floor cushions and stools; they are free but ticketed and the first two sold out.
You want a Turbine Hall spectacle: Artnet found no immediate wow factor, and The Times called it cluttered.