If you visit us regularly here on the Runoff you’re aware that when a new show arrives at Gasworks Gallery in Vauxhall we like to check it out for you. If you’ve never been to Gasworks it’s located at the Oval end of Vauxhall St. and is perfect if what you really demand from a gallery involves Styrofoam coffins or dolls that talk to you.
The current installation at Gasworks is ‘Nocturne’ by Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman. Her practice focusses on nurturing empathy and a sense of wonder at all living creatures, with an emphasis on cave dwelling Oilbirds. Guests can literally merge with nature itself by walking through the exhibit while wearing a sculptural cloak made from wool and, um, air fresheners, which can be found behind the reception desk
The gallery itself is cast in cave like semi darkness, with some quite beautiful hand made feathers dangling from the ceiling. There are also two video installations, the first being a gastroscopic journey through the digestive tract of a snake. In the second, the artist feeds a handmade Oilbird a variety of fruits, including a pineapple that is bigger than the bird itself. The overarching theme being a thought provoking examination of how we rely on nature and it relies on us. There are other themes too, but we’d never do your thinking for you you’ll have to check it out for yourself.
Ingela Ihrman: Nocture is on now until 30 April and is totally free. Gasworks Gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday 12 – 6.
This week marks the 175th anniversary of the Monster Chartist Rally in Kennington Park. Chartism was a working class movement aimed at giving all men (not women unfortunately, that came later) over 21+ the right to vote. They also sought to professionalise Parliament by ensuring that MP’s get paid. This would allow regular working people ( read – men) to become MP’s as opposed to it only being a viable option if you were a property owner and had spare time on your hands during the day.
The Chartists came together on 10 April, 1848 and this so thoroughly freaked out a government who feared a revolution that they called the army to Kennington Park and later recruited thousands of special constables. They even carted off poor old Queen Vic to the Isle of Wight for her own protection. To commemorate this event, the Friends of Kennington Park have put together a spiffy guided tour complete with podcast that outlines how the day unfolded and what happened afterwards. The whole walk takes only half an hour and like most great things we recommend is free.
While you’re in Kennington Park building grey matter why not pop over to the History Hut at the southern end of the park? Not to be confused with the nearby Hound Hut (which we once confused for an sex shop) or indeed Pizza Hut, the Hut is full of fascinating factoids about our beloved neck of the woods over the years.
We usually like to review the new exhibits at the Imperial War Museum, but had some understandable reluctance to check out their newest show. As it’s about war related video games as we didn’t think it exactly fit, lets just say, the sensitive demographic that we cater to. However, we found it fascinating and it dispelled, among other things, the dated myth that online gaming is a domain for spotty teenage boys.
War Games: Real Conflicts, Virtual Worlds, Extreme Entertainment is a show displayed in 10 parts, or levels, starting with the psychology of why people have a long history of gravitating to games involving tactic and strategy. We are then shown a live action game, Wolfenstein 3D (1992) next to Sniper Elite 5 (2022) to see how profoundly gaming has changed over the years. This is where we encounter two enormous screens showing war games and developers telling us in laymen’s terms (it has to be very laymen for us) how they are based on real environments, and they show us how users can play for a few minutes or plan a campaign that takes years to complete. The mind boggles.
The largest room touches on some of the inevitable ethical complexities involved in developing products based on crushing people’s heads and then running them over. Apparently one of the largest growth areas are games which involve saving people affected by war, which is a relief. And increasingly developers are creating figures which can be succinctly personalised to give gamers a feeling that they have agency with that figure. Video games often reflect the anxieties we face at the time they were created and can be seen as mirrors of the age. For example, imagine a videogame fronted by a resurrected Liz Truss with Covid, running around cutting off everyone’s heating.
The most enjoyable element of this exhibit can be found on Level 10 (this room is only open until the end of January) which has dozens of retro video consoles from 1980 up until the current day which you can play for free. We saw Sega, Atari, Commodore 24, X Box, Nintendo 64 and others. We won’t tell you which era we played as you’ll then be one step closer to knowing who we are. But suffice it to say that War Games is a sophisticated spread of immersive installations about a culture that many of us know little about.
For those of you who’ve given IWM a wide berth over the years for moral reasons, we understand your reluctance. However, it is not a temple of jingoistic celebration, and if anything it is dedicated to the human spirit and survival. Galleries dedicated to the Holocaust and women on the home front are very poignant and reminders of the profound impact that conflict has on the innocent.
War Games: Real Conflict, Virtual Worlds, Extreme Entertainment is on now until 28 May and is totally free.
