Ujino and The Rotators @ The Hayward Gallery

A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the work of Tokyo based sculptor and musician Ujino at the Hayward Gallery. His exhibition entitled ‘The Rotators’ is a sculpture come performance artwork which is being shown as part of the Southbank Centre’s Ether series; a festival celebrating cutting edge innovation in sound and art.

When first stepping into the gallery space it was somewhat hard to determine exactly what the concept of Ujino’s installation was until my brain began to comprehend that all of the ubiquitous household objects before me were connected in such a way that a series of movements were translated into signature sounds unique to the electrical objects.

As my eyes were attracted to flashing lights and drawn to several objects such as a hoover strapped to an electric guitar (pictured above), and a London A-Z affixed to a rotating drill bit (pictured below) I began to comprehend the master behind Ujino’s three installations.

Whilst I’m sure this was not the artist’s intention I had a thought whilst surveying the installations; what a gigantic waste of energy these appliances omit in the form of sound, and by using it to his advantage to create such a groundbreaking installation Ujino inadvertently drew my attention to this fact. However it did leave me wondering just how much energy this installation would consume during the course of the exhibition which is scheduled to last 65 days.
Doing his part to reinvent and recycle alongside the largest of the three installations was a poster asking members of the public to donate their own household appliances to his cause during the duration of his exhibition (see below).

I would thoroughly recommend this exhibition to anyone who has a spare half hour to take a leisurely stroll along the Southbank and pop into the Hayward for this exciting and vibrant display.

‘Ujino and the Rotators’ is showing from Wednesday 18 February 2009 - Friday 24 April 2009 and is 100% free.