BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and Ryder Architecture present the second in a series of new commissions exploring the relationship between art and architecture. The BALTIC Ryder Commission brings together an artist with an emerging architectural practice to produce a co-authored artwork. In 2015, BALTIC and Ryder, in collaboration with Blueprint Magazine, have commissioned artist Alice Theobald and Atomik Architecture.
Theobald and Atomik’s co-authored work has evolved through a process of studio visits, workshops, model-making and drawing. It takes the form of an ambitious site-specific installation comprising music, spoken dialogue, video and live performance. Interested in the interiors of Austrian-Czech architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933), particularly his Haus Müller in Prague (1930) and the idea of revealing a space through multiple viewpoints, Theobald and Atomik have constructed a series of interlinking circular spaces that provide a route through the gallery and frame and pace the visitor’s experience. Drawing on Anthony Vidler’s book The Architecture of the Uncanny (1992), and his discussions around the notion of the Unheimlich or the “unhomely” in domestic architecture, they have built a series of familiar yet unsettling rooms lined with duvets and screen-printed texts.
Investigating the interplay between public and private, the viewer and performer, and how we “perform” for each other, Theobald and Atomik have designed a platform which slices through the gallery, creating a stage for a series of part-directed, and task-led performances, captured by a live feed. The playing out of our everyday actions within the surroundings suggests a kind of choreography. An accompanying musical score with a chorus and scripted wordplay, composed by Theobald and arranged together with Atomik, considers the double meanings of our everyday expressions and the circularity and slippage of language. Voices which travel between the spaces change in their intonation and delivery as the script is repeated.
Alice Theobald (born Leicester, 1985) makes performance, installation and video. Often responding to pre-existing places and spaces, her works reference their own construction through the play of language, sound and movement whilst addressing themes of love, alienation, memory and mistrust. Theobald frequently works with a cast of non-professional actors, performers and musicians, shifting between the role of stage director, choreographer, narrator and performer.
Founded by Mike Oades and Derek Draper in 2013 (and joined by Asel Yeszhanova in 2015), Atomik Architecture is a practice of architects and designers based in London and Almaty, Kazakhstan. Employing a creative and process-driven approach to design, over the past two years Atomik have been engaged in a wide range of projects internationally, from large housing developments to temporary installations. Alongside their architectural projects, they run a series of smaller cultural research projects which help inform their wider design direction, often taking part in competitions to test and develop ideas.
Performances will take place daily from: 11.00-13:00 and 13:30-15.30
Alice Theobald and Atomik Architecture
BALTIC Ryder Commission
11 December 2015 – 10 April 2016
BALTIC – Centre for Contemporary Art
Gateshead, UK