#603 - Scare yourself stupid in Tate Modern

Timeout said:

If you press your face to the glass on the fifth floor of the gallery you can look right down the Turbine Hall. Its a long way down!

Dave did:

I've always liked the Tate Modern...mostly because the most innovative exhbitions are the free one's shown in the Turbine hall. Unfortunately they no longer have the 5 story high slide that was open to the public last year, or the giant sugar cube mountain...but what they did have on this visit was an exhibition on the ability of today's cities to support the world's population. It questioned whether the design of cities around the world are suffice for our future needs.



One display that really connected with me was about Dubai where I used to live near when I was younger (1990-96 to be exact). It showed how in 1990 Dubai was a desert land, whereas today its a fast expanding property market! The interesting thing picked up on was the need and purpose of the city, and how Dubai's was different from cities of the past as it was not necessary a gathering of people for social needs, but a growth due to the economic needs of the country as a whole (UAE's oil reserves are quickly diminishing). Furthermore, Dubai is widely recognised for the way it is transforming its coast to suit the 'need' for property, creating man-made landmasses to build on.

Another video exhibit that I quite liked was where there were two video screens facing each other, one showed a picture of a high street in Beijing, the other a woman in a white top. Each time the woman blew as hard as she could, the street opposite her would move further along (in that she was blowing herself backwards out of the street). This project was highlighting the growth of commercialism in China, and how a small high street has grown at a massive rate (it takes the woman a very long time to blow herself along the entire road...please don't snigger every time I say 'blow herself' its incredibly childish and I'm doing it enough for both of us!). Of course the artist has a history of illustrating these points 'with some humour' which brought a small smile to my face!

Here are some more photos I took that I found of interest:




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