Lights which flash in time with music will be familiar to anyone under the age of about 80. They are the trappings of a nightclub or rock concert. They gear people up for action.
It seems appropriate that younger folk take drugs, get drunk and seek out intensities like this on a Saturday night. But it feels wrong for me to be here, sober, on a Friday lunchtime.
Light tubes hang from the ceiling and flicker to a building rhythm. At given interludes, they offer an illuminated pause as if waiting for you. They are alive and it is a trip.
While white cube galleries promote measured contemplation, blacked-out Phoenix is currently a dark cube, giving rise to late night or subterranean impulses.
It is like being the first to arrive at a stark, atonal disco. The space is defined by dangerous strobing and noise. There’s that same libidinous rush, just no dancing, no bar, no sex.
But maybe dancing etc is the scourge of the modern nightspot. Sound/light installations like this suggest there could be other agendas or other uses for the dark. Or maybe I’m just getting old.
Brightonians may want to hurry along to Phoenix because the current show closes tomorrow. Intrinsic by Angie Atmadjaja is one of three works in Actuate My Void. See gallery website for more details.