麻豆传媒

The lorries have arrived. The stuff for Philippe Parreno鈥檚 vast installation is being unloaded in Tate Modern鈥檚 vast Turbine Hall in London 鈥� screens, speakers, lights, computers, a carpet, a dish of yeast, and a dozen or so inflatable fish.

Parreno himself is dead on his feet with work鈥� and worry. His factory-sized mobile 鈥� operated by algorithms derived from growing yeast, the聽 weather, the tides, the passage of planes, even the music from passing buskers 鈥� will not really be under his control.

And this is the point. Parreno鈥檚 recent landmark shows, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, were each granted a certain amount of autonomy once set in motion, but it鈥檚 Anywhen, at the Tate, that truly rips free of the artist鈥檚 guidance.

What will happen? 鈥淚 genuinely don鈥檛 know,鈥� Parreno聽concedes, as we huddle in the corner of a cafe nearby. He clicks through the wireframe diagram of the installation: 鈥淭he hall is a unique space, quite unlike anywhere I鈥檝e inhabited before. Until this work is set in motion, I simply won鈥檛 know whether it, well, works.鈥�

A waiting game

Painters have it easy in the sense that a painting, even in a poor gallery, is still a painting.

Parreno鈥檚 medium is the actual mechanics of exhibition-making. His huge interconnected mechanical and media elements won鈥檛 actually cohere into a significant work of art for some days. By then 鈥� this is the idea 鈥� the rhythms and contingencies that operate its sounds, films, lights and the motions of its roof-mounted panels will have acquired a certain harmony. Unless, of course, they don鈥檛.

Pity the plight of an artist whose art does not 鈥� indeed, cannot 鈥撀爀xist at the time of its own press launch. Newspaper reviewers have so far been generous, not to say easily pleased, making much of the fish (glorified versions of the sort you can buy in any toy store), the architectonic white panels (which create shifting, mobile enclosures and sight lines: this gallery within a gallery literally cannot make up its mind what shape to be) and even the carpet (which, so far as we could judge, was, simply, a grey carpet).

This generosity may be necessary, but it rather misses the point of Parreno鈥檚 art 鈥� which is to set in motion a machine sufficiently complex to generate its own creative work from what are, we hope, rich enough initial conditions.

Art-tech tie-ups

In a rather grumpy report from September鈥檚 Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria, we teased artists for their abrogation of responsibility. Given that making technology (be it in the form of hand axes, wheels, intercontinental ballistic missiles or gallery-spanning 鈥渂iocomputers鈥�) is something that human beings naturally do, there is something redundant about the idea of an artist 鈥渃ollaborating with technology鈥�. It鈥檚 rather like being told that an Olympic runner is collaborating with her legs. 鈥淲ell, obviously,鈥� you may respond, nonplussed.聽 鈥淎nd so鈥�?鈥�

Whether Parreno鈥檚 colossal installation will persuade us out of that grump with 鈥渟ci-art鈥�, we don鈥檛 yet know 鈥� and we won鈥檛 for some days. The wheels have only just started turning; the retorts, as yet, are barely bubbling.

But if Parreno can eventually be said to have succeeded, he鈥檚 going to need a different kind of critical response. Fluid. Slower. More reflective. And (sorry, dear reader, but there鈥檚 no getting around this) late.

For once, then, we encourage you to turn to the magazine issue of 22 October and catch a deeper snapshot of a piece of art that will forever be a work in progress.

[exhibition_info title=鈥滱nywhen鈥� title_link=鈥漢ttp://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/hyundai-commission/hyundai-commission-philippe-parreno-anywhen鈥� gallery=鈥漈urbine Hall, Tate Modern鈥� gallery_link=鈥漢ttp://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/turbine-hall鈥� location=鈥滾ondon鈥� fromdate=鈥漬ow鈥� todate=鈥�2 April 2017鈥砞