Interzone @ The Whisky Bond
It’s over 56 years since the dissolution of the Tangier International Zone, an entity immortalised by no end of bad spy movies and impenetrable, soul-searching literature. Free from the governance of a single state, the city drew in business, artists, and espionage from a wide range of backgrounds. It was William Burroughs who transformed the entity into concept. Amongst other things, Interzone refers to his fictional locale, based heavily on Tangiers, an amorphous realm where the facts are redundant, where ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted.’
It’s the perfect handle for tonight’s exhibition at the Whisky Bond, which immerses its visitors in a formless land of shadow, albeit without the orgies and gratuitous murder. Upon entering, you’re caught up in a crude collision of sound, visuals, sculpture, and performance, with installations bleeding into one another, and the darkness obscuring the faces of visitors and performers alike.
Wrapped around four central pillars in the top chamber is a mass of cling film, obscuring the figure of visual artist Jack Wrigley who, from behind a rack of electronics, is directing an audiovisual assault on the crowd. Fierce waves of saturated noise flood the room. A set of laser beams sweeps the floor and ceiling, while another threads a path through the cling film, refracting through the layers and scattering the beam. The process initially overwhelms the capacity for rational thought, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into a void beyond our own.
Practically every space is made use of, the walls alive with neon imagery that speaks of a time when the future was a real place. Nearby, Robbie Thomson’s automated sculptures shift endlessly through their diabolical motions, working through the tides of feedback towards unknown ends.
In the last chamber we encounter a durational piece performed by The Korovox Action Group, featuring harsh noise terror artist Lea Cummings, AKA Kylie Minoise. True to form, a set of howling amplifiers lines the back of the room, creating a dense wall of sound that accompanies the group’s slow and purposeful destruction. Dressed in lab whites and facemasks, they are smashing and dismantling a range of old PCs and DVD players, before carefully arranging them on a central display table. As the performance goes on, their activities become more erratic. Across the walls, the title of the piece is repeatedly drawn up in red paint – ‘All Time Is Happening Now.’ It’s difficult to say what is being performed here – an exorcism, or a sacrifice?
An overwhelming effort, and the last of its kind before the derelict space undergoes renovation. It’s fitting that this, an exhibition that speaks of unforeseeable and potentially useless futures, should be the one to playfully stem the tide of regeneration. [Jean-Xavier Boucherat]