Tatsuo Miyajima and Susan Hiller included in '24/7' exhibition at Somerset House
31 October 2019
Works by Tatsuo Miyajima and Susan Hiller are included in a group exhibition exploring the non-stop nature of contemporary life at Somerset House in London. On view from 31 October to 23 February, ‘24/7: A Wake-up Call For Our Non-Stop World’ takes visitors on a multi-sensory journey, replicating the course of the solar day through five themed zones and over 50 multi-disciplinary works.Tatsuo Miyajima’s Life Palace (tea room) (2013) is experienced as a meditative isolation chamber, into which individuals can climb one at a time, shut the door and bathe in the blue glow of LED counters. These 'gadgets' which count down through the numbers 9 to 1 are used by Miyajima to represent the cycle of human life as taught through Buddhist texts. In his version of a tea room, Miyajima invites the structure's visitors to 'drink time' instead.
Susan Hiller's 1974 work Dream Mapping is comprised of documentary photography and drawings produced following an experiment in which Hiller invited participants to sleep within naturally formed 'fairy rings' of mushrooms in the English countryside. The 'dream maps' of each participant were collected and copied onto transparent paper, overlaid, and traced to compile a composite group map for each night, through which a number of shared features were revealed.
'24/7' is on view until 23 February 2020. Find more information here.
Image: Tatsuo Miyajima, Life Palace (tea room) (2013), L.E.D., IC, microcomputer by Ikegami program, wood, steel, passive sensor, electric wire, LED type; Life G-BL 152 pieces © Somerset House; photography Tim Bowditch
