RA Lates: Deep Earth
Saturday 23 November 2019 7 - 11pm
Royal Academy of Arts
£25 – £75
Antony Gormley
Experience nature reinterpreted through earthly interventions, performances and soundscapes across our campus at this epic RA Late.
Taking inspiration from Antony Gormley, Eco-Visionaries and Lucian Freud: The Self Portraits, we explore portrayals of the body and its relationship to nature and the cosmos.
This curated contemporary programme spanning performance art, soundscapes, live music, sculpture, film, installation art and more will takeover the RA's two-acre campus for one night. Experience botanical landscapes, industrial themed dj sets and spaces exploring the deepest corners of the cosmos.
Tickets include after-hours entry to the exhibitions Antony Gormley, Eco-Visionaries and Lucian Freud: The Self Portraits.
See programme highlights below with much more to be revealed...
£25 – £75
Antony Gormley
Oliver Coates, Lawrence Lek, SPATIAL and This Healing Place
Experimental audio visual takeover, 7.40–10.30pm
Oliver Coates is a cellist, electronic producer and composer from the UK. His live performances centre on amplified cello interacting with computer environments triggering distortions underneath ambient melodies. At this RA Late, he brings a curated line up of sound artists to the Benjamin West Lecture Theatre for an immersive three-hour sonic journey.
"How can we make the interior felt and cheat the illusion of appearance?" – Antony Gormley, PRESENT TIME,1996.
Gormley's words form the basis of this takeover, exploring nature, ambient listening and sound modulation. Line up includes:
This Healing Place
Brother-and-sister duo Maddy and Sam Chassar-Hesketh of This Healing Place campaign to save the unique beauty of the natural world through their music. As BBC Proms 'Composer of the Year' award winners 2019, they describe their music as "future sound of London meets Debussy", connecting listeners to the true nature of the earth.
7.40–8.30pm
Oliver Coates and Lawrence Lek
Oliver Coates joins long-time collaborator Lawrence Lek for an audio-visual performance. Featuring Lek via live stream from the Singapore Biennale on a first-person video game walk-through of dystopic fantasy levels and alongside Coates' blazing romantic cello accompaniment.
8.35–9.30pm
SPATIAL
SPATIAL is an electronic musician and multimedia artist from London whose work incorporates low frequency vibration, hacked code and sonic experiments. At this RA Late, SPATIAL and Coates perform a visual music piece investigating the relationship between seeing sound and hearing colour. The performance is generated and manipulated in realtime via live coding.
9.30–10.30pm
The Pollinarium
Immersive installation, 7pm - 11pm
Renowned spatial laboratory Loop.pH, bring their Pollinarium to the RA for one night.
This installation aims to enhance our perception of the vital role that pollinating insects play in sustaining human life on earth, by helping us see, hear and feel our natural environment in new and enriched ways.
The Pollinarium follows the bee's journey as a pollinator through its own eyes and ears.
Floral intensities
Audio-visual installation, 7–11pm, with live performance 9–10pm
A botanically inspired immersive journey takes audiences through fantasy landscapes, live soundtracked to Aszyk's cinematic score.
This intervention takes place in the Front Hall of the RA's Burlington Gardens, now part of the RA's redeveloped campus but was originally the landscaped garden for a town-house on Piccadilly. Audiences are invited to re-imagine this long-gone English garden in digital form.
Visuals and music directed and produced by Aszyk.
Lunar Baroque
Interactive clay installation, 7–11pm
Join artist Phoebe Cummings create a lush, imagined landscape installation from clay that will evolve throughout the evening. Create plants, creatures and geological formations of a fictional planet from raw material, contributing to an abundant and ephemeral lunar landscape.
SIREN takeover
Experimental DJ sets, 8–11pm
SIREN is a London-based collective whose mission is to challenge gender-based values in the music industry. Through zines, community workshops, DJ sets and more SIREN highlight the work of women and non-binary people to create their own vibrant alternative nightlife.
During their sets, Jay, Moonbow and Sybil will take audiences through an experimental deep listening ambient set, culminating in eclectic dance and techno.
Often Return
Audio visual installation, 7–11pm
Often Return is an installation by audio visual collaborative partners GG skips and Felix Bayley-Higgins.
The installation takes place in a vaulted corridor underneath the Royal Academy. Referencing the concept of 'hauntology', a nostalgia for an imagined past and future histories, they fill this 'non place' with cultural samples from cosmic worlds using field recordings from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. These samples, both audio and visual are systematically collided in the space, as a process of world making. Sounds from a Polish town square echo with patterns from the carpets of a hotel lobby in 1950's America. Cultural fragments are resurrected and fused, forming atmospheres and impressions of new imagined worlds.
Earthly Bodies
Lucian Freud inspired life drawing, 8–11pm
The Secret Drawing Club present their latest life drawing class, using male and female models to recreate poses captured in the masterful drawings and figurative works by Lucian Freud.
You’ll be guided through a combination of short dynamic poses throughout the evening within the RA’s Collections Gallery, beneath the spectacular copy of Leonardo's Last Supper.
Sublime nightscapes
Live music and DJs
Melodic and haunting live sets within the RA's atmospheric 19th century Life Drawing Room. Line-up includes:
Space Afrika
Heavily inspired by the industrial architecture of Northwest England, Space Afrika's sound evokes images of rust, disintegrating concrete amid influences of ambient techno, minimal and no wave.
Performances at 7.15–8.15pm and 9–10pm
Hannah Faith
South London based DJ and sound curator Hannah Faith is deeply influenced by her travels across the globe which is reflected in her electric soul, jazz-funk and afro-house infused ambient sets. Performances at 8.15–9pm and 10–11pm
Re-wilding
Performances and installations, 7–11pm
A series of performances and sensory interventions that take inspiration from the ecological concept of "re-wilding", which advocates restoring species and plant life to urban and rural areas.
In this context, we consider what natural elements could regrow within the RA's Fine Rooms in a series of scenographic interventions across these gilded spaces.
Explore these five hidden rooms and encounter pop up choral hymn performances, installations, a botanical gin bar and more including:
Woodland RA
This intervention by PiM.studio Architects prompts us to examine the relationship between humans, nature and technologies. They invite you to imagine a new way of inhabiting architecture that is open to new forms of coexistence between humans and nature.
Bittersuite
Sensory music collective BitterSuite tonight perform a set of choral Georgian folk songs to connect us to the earth.
Conversations for a planet in a state of emergency
Talks and discussions, 7.30–8.50pm
Eco-Visionaries, explores how architects, artists and designers are responding today to some of the most urgent ecological issues of our times. Tonight, the exhibition's curator, Gonzalo Herrero Delicado, hosts a series of talks that delve into some of the concepts behind the exhibition.
On re-wilding our cities
With Maria-Chiara Piccinelli and Maurizio Mucciola, PiM. studio architects
7.30–7.50pm
On algae-based design
With Samuel Illife, researcher.
8–8.30pm
On sustainability and fashion
With Wilson Oryema, model, poet and environmental campaigner.
8.30–8.50pm
Winter food market
RA Courtyard, open all evening
Visit our pop-up winter food market with some of London's finest street food traders including:
Van Dough – Woodfired pizzas
Quack N Mac – Mac n cheese
Grate Rosti – Alpine inspired rostis
Waffle On – Sweet and savoury waffles
Bars include:
Small Beer Brewing Company – Craft beer
The 43 Club – Mulled wine and winter warmers
Urban Cordial – Cocktail bar using foraged ingredients
Christabels – Botanical cocktails
The VIP experience
All VIP ticket buyers will have exclusive access to the RA's three-storey Keeper's House, originally built by Sydney Smirke RA in the 1870s as the grand residence for the Royal Academy's Keeper. Explore the spaces to discover secret bars, performances and underground parties - exclusively for VIPs.
The Academician's Room
Access to the RA's exclusive private members club opens up, where complimentary champagne is served alongside a bespoke cocktail menu. Vintage furnishings create the intimate, bohemian ambience of an artist's drawing room.
The Underground Garden
A secret subterranean den where an underground party is underway. Featuring dance performances and DJ sets inspired by depictions of the natural world. Create your own animal mask and join the fantastical world. Curated by performance artist Amy Toner.
The Algae Opera
Art and design studio Burton Nitta bring their spectacular algae opera for a series of special VIP only performances. An opera singer is transformed with biotechnology to form a unique relationship with algae, which feeds on the carbon dioxide in the singer's breath. The composition of the song and the singer's vocal technique are redesigned to specifically produce algae and enrich its taste.
Book now
– Access to all RA Lates curated entertainment, experiences, performances and activities.
– After-hours viewing of RA exhibitions including Antony Gormley, open from 8pm - 10pm (last entry 9.45pm), Eco-Visionaries and Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits, both open from 7pm - 11pm (last entry 10.45pm).
Sold out.
– Access to all RA Lates curated entertainment, experiences, performances and activities.
– After-hours viewing of RA exhibitions including Antony Gormley, open from 8pm - 10pm (last entry 9.45pm), Eco-Visionaries and Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits, both open from 7pm - 11pm (last entry 10.45pm).
Make your Saturday night at the RA extra special with a VIP ticket, which includes:
– Complimentary glass of champagne
– Private view of Antony Gormley between 7pm - 8pm, before it opens for everyone else.
– Goody bag of gifts
– Access to exclusive VIP-only secret experiences.
Dress code: Earthy vs Industrial
Take inspiration from natural tones and fabrics, incorporate the muted greens of forests and woodlands, use clay and terracotta colour-schemes, or look to craggy cliffs and coastlines for reflective greys and blues.*
Or look to industrial architecture for inspiration, incorporate metallic fabrics and dramatic, textured shapes to your look. Be bold and think about the textures of the rusting metals of industrial spaces.
Check out our pinterest board here for inspiration.
*Please note that any live plants or flowers as part of your costumes will not be permitted inside the exhibition spaces.
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