Electrical servants, an ethereal family, and a conspiracy theory generator? Must be Kinetica Art Fair. Kathryn Bromwich reports.
Across from Madame Tussaud's, you enter what seems to be a car park: in the distance there are some lights, vague movements, a large shambolic structure. As you get closer, the amorphous thing turns out to be a milk float – albeit one made up of found objects, traffic signs and bits of junk. Seated next to it is an oddly realistic robot and its dog. From here on it just gets stranger.
Kinetica Art Fair 2010 offers a distinctly modern blurring of the boundaries between art, science and engineering, showing technology working together with the human processes of selection and composition. Some of the objects on show are little more than electronic gadgets: in the entrance you are greeted by a small robot-keg that pours out complimentary Heineken (very nice, provided you like a bit of head on your beer).
Nevertheless, most of the works are more traditionally artistic. There is an evident fascination with the graceful and apparently random movements that mechanical objects can create. Carol MacGillivray's Übermensch Bolt moves in a way that is uncannily human, showing how machines can be “predictable in principle but unpredictable in practice”.
The Fair is a multi-sensory experience: neon lights, lasers, holograms and reflections create spectacular visual effects, there are sounds coming from all sides, and the variety of textures and materials adds a tactile element to it all. There is a room decorated like a church, a construction with Jan Svankmajer-esque dolls based on a 1930s poem about electrical servants, a family of ethereal illuminated beings, and a conspiracy theory generator.
Ric Carvalho's Global Warming, a urinal at which you can spray water from plastic bottles, embodies two of the Fair's main concerns. Firstly, it's interactive, encouraging visitors to figure out how everything works through trial and error. Moreover, its nod to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain shows a connection to the past: although the Fair is quintessentially modern, there is a pervasive fascination with the art and technology of the last century.
Since it's such a large show, there are unavoidably a couple of forgettable works, which, individually, are not startlingly original. But taken as a whole, the exhibition is consistent and progressive, and a more convincing exposition of the direction of modern art than last year's 'Altermodern' at the Tate Britain. The Fair's central claim is that movement is as endemic to modern sculpture as stillness was to it in the past. Bombastic and sweeping as the statement may sound, you get the feeling that there may be more than a shred of truth in it.
Kinetica Art Fair 2010 is at P3 until 7th February 2010.
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