ShadowMemory x Art Night Open
07 July 2018
In the bright lights of Art Night 2018 on July 7, we want you to join us in the shadows. Allow ShadowMemory to lead you onto a network of paths, invisible to the naked eye, that weave along the Southbank of the Thames, only steps away from the main Art Night Trail. This new digital project invites you to head into the urban unknown with a diverse collection of immersive, interactive narratives routes. Each narrative is as unusual as its maker; individual artists and art collectives from London, Geneva, Krasnodar, Moscow, Minsk, Tel Aviv and Kyiv. No two narratives are ever the same; with one you will experience a game, another a story, another a co-created performance.
Make sure your phone is charged, download the app on July 7th, choose one of the seven routes and head to the first location – don’t miss the artists on your route! All routes run in proximity to the Art Night trail; encompassing the area surrounding Southbank Centre, Battersea Power Station, Vauxhall and Nine Elms.
ShadowMemory Creators
Our Art Night Open ShadowMemory creators:Paul Coombs and Gabriel Mulvey (London, Geneva)
eeefff (Moscow, Minsk)
Timothy Maxymenko (Kyiv)
Katia Reshetnikova (Moscow)
Sarah Staton (London)
Rotem Volk (Tel Aviv)
Zip group (Krasnodar)
Route # 1. Animality
by Zip GroupStart point: 41 Royal St, bench outside Archbishop’s Park, SE1 7LW/ Archbishop’s park sportsground, SE1 7LE/embankment, near London Eye, SE1 7BF
Time: 6:00 — 9:00 PM
Check your logic and chat, playing chess near Bishop’s Park. Join the championship — the UCLMD or Underground Chess League (after Marcel Duchamp). Get a free portrait of your four-legged friends near The London Eye — bring your dog and we will draw it. Protosport in the sports playground — of new and forgotten exercises.
The ever-inventive ZIP group is successfully putting Krasnodar, Russia on the art map. Animality, as you might expect, is all about London, but not perhaps as you know it. You will follow a character, a combination of several creatures; dog, artist, and policeman. According to Zip, a bit of each of these characters is in us all: Self-control and the internal sensor (policeman), absolute freedom and instinct (dog), open-mindedness and globality (artist). On the way you will be challenged with different perspectives and choices of how to behave, perhaps illuminating unexpected things about yourself along the way.
Route # 2. Atlas
by Katia ReshetnikovaStart point: Battersea Park, SW11 4BE, as you enter the park from the bridge, on the left uphill there is a green space
Time: 6:00 — 8:00 PM
Join Katia Reshetnikova’s cool collective playground between 6-8pm to explore the slower, more invisible processes of the human sensorium through a series of simple sensitive scores and meditations.
In a city where hurrying is the norm, Moscow based Katia Reshetnikova invites you to slow right down. The artist’s voice will guide you through small actions, games, and explorations of the body’s inner movements. Her intention is to make you feel the sublime in the everyday and create a shift in your perception to reveal the unseen. As with Reshetnikova’s other work, Atlas spans the intersection of performance, dance, and audio. Over this short walk, you will discover a whole new Southbank hidden in plain sight and end feeling more focused and grounded.
Route # 3. Backbone
by Gabriel Mulvey & Paul CoombsStart point: Aures Sensorium, Unit 7, 18 Leake Street, SE1 7NN
Time: 10:00 — 11:00pm
For one night only and in celebration of Art Night 2018 and Pride, Gabriel Mulvey and Paul Coombs will perform live re-imaginings of their geolocated video work Backbone in twelve acts which explore social subjects and civil liberties through poetry beats and pop. Backbone interposes historical narratives with present and future imaginings, exploring what it is to be queer in London .
Route # 4. Fish Finger Sandwich
by Sarah StatonStart point: The Anchor & Hope pub
Time: Anchor and Hope, 8:00 – 9:00pm, SE1 8LP / Banh Bao Bros, from 10:00pm, SE1 7NN
Sarah Staton will be on site at the Anchor and Hope between 8:00 — 9:00 PM, and from 10:00 PM onwards at Banh Bao Bros, the sites of her most recent installations to talk and answer questions about her practice. Swing by say hi.
London’s layered psychogeography provides a full larder of resource for this artist’s guide to this Art Night locale. Merging memory, deep roots and connections to this area with ideas for micro-exhibitions, Sarah Staton focuses her attention on Lower Marsh. You’ll discover a series of temporary installations awaiting you within the best independent cafes, bars, and restaurants in the area. Through the heady mix of immersive technology and real space investigation, you’ll find both art and nourishment within this enjoyable program - a reveal of material culture, bonhomie, and unexpected pleasures to be unearthed across the SE1 postcode.
Route # 5. From where I stand
by Rotem VolkStart point: The benches between Westminster and Lambeth Bridge
Time: 6:00 — 9:00 PM
You are invited to the lowest place on earth to meet one-on-one with the artist Rotem Volk for an exchange. Using salt and water to transport you from the benches of Southbank to the Dead Sea, this small intervention sells packets of salt and sand brought with the artist from Israel in exchange for a fantasy, a coin or anything of symbolic value.
Water, water, everywhere. This unassuming liquid is not just essential to our survival, our connection and longing for it is complex and emotional. Tel Aviv based performance artist Rotem Volk will take you on an immersive walk along the Thames, exploring the different relationships people around the world have with water sources, through personal experiences, memories and stories. Each stop reveals different water sources located at extraordinary sites around the globe, carefully collected by the artist. All originate from the same point of view - From Where I Stand.
Route # 6. Prepare to synchronize
by eeefff (Nicolay Spesivtsev & Dzina Zhuk)Start point: Nine Elms, near 1-5 New Union Square, SW8 5DA
Time: 6:00 — 9:00 PM
Have you ever wondered what happens inside the cable channels and false ceilings of a Nine Elms skyscraper when we are not there? Or examined your feelings for an automatic door? In a city dominated by intelligent systems and smart technology eeefff invite you to discover the invisible forces that drive them, experiencing the inhuman drama unfolding in ways we mortals can finally grasp. Moscow and Minsk based eeefff’s route is a training program, preparing you for connection with these sophisticated computations, invisible to the eye and operating at speeds hundreds of times faster than humans.
Route # 7. Urban Howl
by Timothy MaxymenkoStart point: Сrossing of Leake Street and York Road, underneath the advert sign 39 York Rd, Lambeth, SE1NQ
Time: 6:00 — 9:00 PM
Come to play with and be played to by the city and its sounds. Make a mixtape sampling air vents and electricity boxes; be serenaded by sample drains and cooling units.
A walk with Timothy Maxymenko certainly won’t be boring. Or quiet. This Ukrainian intermedia artist, one half of Mutro Art Group, is known for creating experimental sound performances. The Urban Howl is an audio walk, inviting you to explore the city as an imperfect mechanism, to find its leaks and hear its groaning. You will also be co-creator, mixing your own soundtrack as you go, gathering electric noise from air vents, drains and electrical boxes along the river bank. At the end, you can download your finished masterpiece.