There are inflatable fish toys, lights that go on and then fizzle out, music segments ranging from Dvořák to the Beatles, films, snippets of Radio 2 travel bulletins, the sound of heavy rain and passing aeroplanes – and all of it might occasionally be influenced by a colony of micro-organic yeast.
The artist Philippe Parreno admitted there was an awful lot going on as he unveiled his Hyundai commission for Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall.
Called Anywhen, the French artist has created a constantly evolving, audiovisual, kaleidoscopic exhibition rather than an installation.
On the Turbine Hall floor is a vast carpet that visitors can lie on to experience sounds and visuals that change constantly.
“We have a lot of stuff,” said Parreno. “There may be a pattern after some time, but at the moment it is quite random.”
Parreno said visitors might feel as if they were in a park. Who knows what you might see or hear? And there was no manual for how people might react to his kaleidoscope of things: they could lie down and contemplate memory or the environment or they could throw a helium-filled fish into the air.
“There is no authority in the way you look at art here,” said Parreno. “It is not like cinema where you have a structure which takes you from one place to another.”
Parreno is the latest artist to fill the huge and challenging Turbine Hall space. Previous artists include Ai Weiwei, who deposited millions of ceramic sunflower seeds, Carsten Höller, who installed slides, and Doris Salcedo, who created an enormous crack in the floor.
Tate Modern’s director, Frances Morris, said she had thought Turbine Hall commission artists had already fully exploited the possibilities of the space. But she added: “It feels to me that Philippe Parreno has built and seen through and created something which would have been inconceivable when we first thought about the Turbine Hall project in 2000.”
Morris said it felt like a new space now that the hall was sandwiched between the old boiler house and the £260m Switch House extension.
There is a structure to the many things going in Parreno’s work – but also a randomness, with a weather monitor on the roof and a bio reactor containing a colony of yeast also influencing what happens.
Parreno himself will add sequences and films over the duration of the exhibition. “Six months is quite a long time, lots of time to change things,” he said.
Not even the work’s title is set in stone; Parreno was originally calling it Thereabouts, adding: “I like both of them, maybe we will change the title in a few months.”
Hyundai Commission 2016. Philippe Parreno: Anywhen is in the Turbine Hall 4 October – 2 April
