Coming up is the UBS Openings: The Long Weekend, which we loved last year and this year there is an even more impressive programme of film, music, performance and visual art. Get out your diaries, set your watch, take a deep breath and get a bit excited...
Friday 25 May
To kick off the Long Weekend, French artist Mathieu Briand will create a massive sound installation in the Turbine Hall; basically, a huge recording studio and performance space which will host performances throughout the Friday and Saturday. Following this, seven films by Maya Deren will be screened with live score by Ikue Mori
Saturday 26 May
As well as more from Mathieu Briand and kids activities throughout the day, the evening is reserved for adults only. Reunited wreckers of civilisation Throbbing Gristle return on Saturday 26 May with a set composed to honour the life and work of filmmaker Derek Jarman. Screenings of rarely seen early experimental super 8 films will play alongside Throbbing Gristle's soundtrack. After ceasing operations in 1981, they continued separately as Chris and Cosey, Coil and Psychic TV, but reformed the original industrial band in 2004. Originally a one-off gig, this reunion has already seen several live performances as well as an album of new material, though rumour has it all wrapping up (once and for all? We hope not!) later this year. Check the band's web site for details about their upcoming public recording sessions at the ICA, 1 - 3 June.
Sunday 27 May
There's a ruddy huge carousel made out of rubbish and lots of toffee apples in the Turbine Hall during the day then that's cleared away for a big sleepover with Andy Warhol. From 7.30pm Sunday to 3.45pm on Monday, Warhol's Sleep will be screened: five hours of poet John Giorno asleep on a continuous 18 hour loop, accompanied by a relay race of pianists attempting the live performance of Erik Satie's hypnotic piano piece, Vexations. Warhol was present at writer and composer John Cage's 1963 staging of this bizarre work and Sleep is inspired by the 18 hours and 40 minutes it took to finish performing Vexations, which is a 52 beat segment played 840 times. Ticket holders are invited to bring sleeping bags.
Monday 28 May
Audio-visual artists from Japan, Austria and the UK come together on one bill for Synthesis. Sachiko M will combine pure sine wave experiments with Benedict Drew's visuals to create one unified score. Known for her love of the extreme ends of the sonic spectrum, these tones are sure to touch the edges of your ears as well as rumble the bottom of your stomach. Toshimaru Nakamura and Billy Roisz will explore feedback and decay as AVVA, with Roisz's visuals drawing solely on input from Nakamura's no-input mixing board, a console that produces sound by connecting its output cables to its own input jacks. Ryoichi Kurokawa, the only solo performer of the night, will use his digitally-manipulated analogue field recordings to build a rhythmic union of sight and sound. Those who enjoy travelling to the outer reaches of the digital galaxy should find Synthesis an unmissable conclusion to the weekend's events.
Drop in and see what's happening during the day or get organised and start booking the evening events now. It's a long weekend, make it a memorable, musical, mesmerising, mind-blowing one.
By Dave Knapik and Hazel Tsoi
UBS Openings: The Long Weekend at Tate Modern, Friday 25 to Monday 28 May. For more information and to book tickets, go to the Long Weekend website here.
