Live Union

Home » Blog » Art » Curtain Call

Curtain Call

The Roundhouse was built as a turntable for trains and since first becoming a performance space in the sixties people having been looking for clever ways to use its roundness. Ron Arad’s Curtain Call is a 360 degree installation celebrating five years since the venue was spruced up and reopened.

50km of translucent silicon tubing hangs from a circular steel rig creating a shimmering fluid screen, enveloping the audience in a cocoon of projected imagery. A dozen artists have created work to play on Ron Arad’s curtain including; David Shrigley, Mat Collishaw and Hussien Chalayan.

There is something about the Roundhouse that is intrinsically fun and what makes Arad’s installation both interactive and joyous is that you walk through the screen; parting the silicon tubing like a beaded curtain hanging behind the counter in a corner shop. Where screens are normally static this one waves as people come and go and kids try to distort the projected image.

Once inside the screen you sit on the floor and watch the various films unfold around you, some are better than others but what challenges your attention span is sitting on the floor, a bean bag would have been bliss. In the programme notes, Arad talks about creating ‘an easy spectacle’ something that is really straightforward to experience and he’s achieved this in spades. People do three things; sit and watch from the inside of the screen, jiggle the silicon tubing to affect the image and take a stroll round the outside to look at it from the other side.

Whilst it is a straightforward experience it is technically complex. Arad worked with Blitz Communications – well-known to those of us in the event world – it took six months to achieve this luminous curtain and uses twelve projectors. Normally of course the technical crew are hidden away, not here, Blitz’s mission control with its twelve computers and twelve monitoring screens is effectively an installation in its own right.

If you get a chance head along to the Roundhouse to see this amazing installation before the curtain comes down. Oh and here and here you’ll find some videos I shot.

« Previous  Narrative in Practice         Next »  Zee