Paranoia

Where do you want to spend your bank holiday weekend? In the park? In the pub? Or standing in a disused cash-and-carry in London’s New Cross while a sound artist fires lasers and infrasonic sound waves at you in a wilful attempt to make you paranoid?

If the latter choice sounds appealing to you, then you’re in for a treat at pop-up exhibition Local Anaesthesia, curated by a group of Central Saint Martin’s students, which is taking place from 27-29 May.

Inside the space
Inside the space

The show will focus on a live experiment by artist J Milo Taylor – entitled Dreadspace #Blood and Fire – which will address the hypothesis, ‘Can you synthetically evoke paranoia?’ Details of the work remain sketchy at present, but even at this stage, the answer seems to be a unequivocal ‘yes’.

Taylor promises ‘to manipulate and contort the viewer’s senses’ using ‘infrasonic and supersonic levels, DIY electronics, lasers and spectacular visuals’ to produce ‘a soup of sound’. Worryingly, his website also links through to research carried out on the potential adverse human health effects of infrasound.

Defining irrational structures with a string
Defining irrational structures with a string

Taylor’s experiment is intended as a reflection of contemporary urbanism and how it can block or heighten senses – the work aims to replicate this sensory manipulation.

And if all this sounds a bit too intense, the show also promises the opportunity to turn your body into a sound receiver.

The event poster
The event poster

Ryan Jordan will be hosting the Human Oscillators workshop, in which participants will build small noise machines using integrated circuits, resistors capacitors and wire. Touching these machines will apparently transform the human body into a receiver, able to pick up radio signals and channel electricity.

The cash and carry
The cash and carry

Local Anaesthesia runs from 27-29 May, in the ASC Pop-up Project Space, Bond House, Goodwood Road, London SE16. For more information visit www.localanaesthesiaexhibition.com.

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