Commissioned by SCAN and British Council, Congregation is due to premiere simultaneously at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai as part of World Expo and Bournemouth for the Inside Out Festival, followed by further performances at Tate Britain, London

Congregation illuminates the responses that humans make to interruption and interference in their environment. The interruption, in this example, is the arrival of a lone figure (The Angel). This figure cannot communicate, can barely move and appears powerless. Despite its impotence, the figure is utterly immovable, indelible, and as such must be perceived as super-human, with an authority and permanence as powerful as any force of nature. If it will not adapt, it demands to be acknowledged; and the witnesses of the arrival must establish a relationship with it. Our human need to believe – to attribute meaning, to understand our environment – leads us to make extraordinary attempts to relate to this enigmatic presence, and we fall quickly upon universal patterns of religion, spirituality, faith. We seek affirmation in sharing these beliefs with our neighbours, and attempt to reduce and distill the mystery into something tangible. Communities form as consensus develops, and factions seek to confirm their specific relationship with the visitor by defining their differences from each other.

And what then becomes of us should this visitor depart? Are we willing to accept that what seemed permanent was merely an apparition – that we were fooled, and foolish – or was the power in the shared experience sufficient to outlive the trigger? Will we miss our visitor, or rejoice in the reaction which was catalysed? Was the act of the moment more telling than the subject?

Patchy bloggers, at the very best, we’re going to make a concerted effort to keep making regular updates to this page as development and travel progresses…

A wonderful image from the Great Street Games in Gateshead found on Flickr. Thanks to photographer Paul White

The games were set out of doors, in large urban spaces, with no pre-prepared participants. The scale of the arenas created a vast aesthetic impact on the urban environments in which they were placed, drawing audiences to them, quite often by chance as people went about their daily lives. Curiosity drew people in, but it was the intelligence of the language within these games which held the public attention and engaged them in problem solving, play and social engagement.

By manipulating time and space within the public arena and blurring the distinction between participant and audience, KMA’s work is opening up vast new environments in which art and audiences meet equally on each other’s terms.

Some video footage from Great Street Games is available here

Developed from principles established by KMA, 5circles builds on their successful public interactive light works in a new collaboration with Pilot Theatre to celebrate 2012. An inaugural performance was held in York in October 2009.

The piece is an exploration of relationships and spaces, using the audience as the subject matter, creating an impromptu choreography formed as a response to the natural enquiry and playfulness of the public.

There’s more information and some video from the opening night here.

Some great images coming in from Liverpool. This is one of my favourites.