As part of Hayward Gallery’s exhibition, Carsten Höller: Decision (10 June – 6 September 2015), visitors are invited to book a night in the artist’s Two Roaming Beds (Grey), a pair of robotic beds that roam the gallery.
The exclusive overnight stay for one or two people will provide guests with out of hours access to the gallery and the opportunity to immerse themselves in Carsten Höller’s many experimental environments – from ‘lifting off’ over the sculpture terrace on Two Flying Machines and experiencing the world through Upside Down Goggles, to activating the large-scale Flying Mushrooms mobile and taking a ride down one of the Isomeric Slides that hug the side of the building.
Overnight visitors enter the gallery through Höller’s Decision Corridors, taking them on a twisting and unexpected route from the world outside the gallery to the topsy-turvy world within. During the night Two Roaming Beds (Grey) make their way around the lower galleries in slow motion (0.7 metres a minute) which, according to Höller ‘introduces a moment of uncertainty’ where the sleepers can no longer be sure that the place that they go to sleep in will be the same place where they wake up.
The beds are programmed to move in relationship to one another using a range of navigational systems. While a laser on the front of each of the beds sweeps the floor, searching for obstacles as it moves, radio beacons set in the gallery’s ceiling help the beds determine their relationship to one another and their position within the gallery. Although Höller’s twin beds appear to move in tandem, one bed in fact controls the movements of the other. This relationship is reversed each time that the bed that is currently in control – or leading their ‘dance’ – encounters an obstacle in the gallery.
Ralph Rugoff, Director of Hayward Gallery and exhibition curator, said:
“Visitors who get to spend a night in the gallery while transported on self-navigating beds will have an intimate and utterly unique experience of Carsten Höller’s mind-boggling exhibition. On awaking, they may find that the Hayward will never look the same again.”
To spend a night in the Hayward Gallery’s Carsten Höller: Decision exhibition,visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk/carstenholler
Hayward Gallery Southbank Centre Belvedere Road London, SE1 8XX
