Somerset House Studios presents '3 Evenings' @ Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
In 1966, artist Robert Rauschenberg and electrical engineer Billy Klüver launched '9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering', a landmark experiment that brought together artists, engineers, and scientists in a technological performance. 60 years later, Somerset House Studios transformed Wapping Hydraulic Power Station into a similar interdisciplinary playground across 3 nights. Over 20 artists came together to explore performance and creativity in the context of new technologies.
Friday 16th of October 2026 marked the opening night of the event, presenting a range of performances and instalments through animation, video games, dance, acting, and music.
Keiken's Liquid Perception provided an interactive live instalment built around a prototype of 'embodied empathy' technology. Visitors wore a chest band that pulsed over the heart, a pair of handheld light-based sensors and headphones, before entering a room strung with flowering vines. Each flower, wired with its own sensor, encouraged guests to reach out and connect to the sensor. In response, the environment filled with new sounds, coloured lights and vibrations over the heart. The pulses from the chest band instantly transformed the atmosphere within the installment, as if it was manually evoking a sense of excitement and anticipation. Paired with the lights and sounds, Keiken created a captivating and awe-inducing environment for guests to engage with.
But underneath all of the tech, Keiken's real intentions were to facilitate interactions between people. Way-finding paths steered patrons through a series of encounters, and when two hand sensors met, they were rewarded with a new experience of sound, light and touch. Every action and gesture altered not only your own personal perspective, but affected everyone else's experience. Interacting with strangers, laughter, and sharing each other's sensory experience made this installment a heart-warming opportunity for human connection. Liquid Perception utilised technology to create a shared, ever-changing perceptual world, through non-verbal communication.
Jenkin van Zyl's film and installation Enclosure portrayed a decaying facility where tourists could inhabit the lives of others. Agnieszka Szczotka plays The Hostess, the face of the franchise. The Hostess is an uncanny, yet charming character adorned in pink, performing a surprisingly comical yet gripping monologue.
With the stage in the round, the hostess commands the room, interacting with the audience in a multilingual uproar of emotions, switching from English, to Spanish, to French, and Szczotka's native language, Polish. The electric pink dress contrasted the cigarette smoke filling the air, shattered glass, and trodden-on roses as our character descends into madness. Szczotka, or her character, literally bleeds out into her work, whilst the audience watches, helpless. Szczotka’s performance was a whirlwind. From laughter, to eyeing up the next victim of The Hostess’ flirtation, to feeling unnerved, and the horror of her demise. An incredibly engaging and enjoyable watch.
Later in the evening, Gazelle Twin presented Ragebait. Surrounded by robotics, Twin began her set with a harsh static, overlaid with angelic harmonies. To her left stood a television screen and a robotic arm, playfully twisting a hammer in its wrist, moving closer and closer to the screen. Twin beautifully creates an agonising sense of anticipation in her soundtrack, leaving the audience waiting with bated breath for the robotic arm to make contact. As the music builds, the robotic arm finally swings the hammer, hitting the screen and causing it to crack.
Amongst the disorienting sounds and flashing lights, I came face to face with a Robo-dog, and for a moment, looking into its camera lens 'eyes'. It almost felt real, like it had come to life. As the music begins to descend into convoluted screeching and discomfort, Twin demonstrates the power of technology and what can be created through destruction, leaving this strange feeling that perhaps we are putting too much faith into technology, something we don't truly understand.
Ragebait left me feeling a range of emotions. Twin created an indescribable yet palpable feeling, like watching a train wreck and being unable to look away. The entrancing vocals pulled me in whilst the static and screeching left me unsettled. Despite wanting to look away, to get away from the noise and lights, the waiting, the anticipation of the hammer-wielding arm causing destruction held me still. Perhaps that is what technology has become: an entrancing yet equally disconcerting power that can be used to create, but also to harm.
All the hubbub, music and connection transformed a lowly lit power station into a melting pot of ideas, melding two seemingly opposing disciplines – art and technology – into a powerful and thought-provoking evening.
Edited by Emily Bunder, London Editor
Comments