A Collaboration between 291 Gallery + Chelsea College of Art and Design

Two nights of installations/performances/projections exploring the common ground between architecture, installation and performance. The events follow the ‘International Performing Architecture Symposium’ at Tate Modern (10-12 November 2000).

#226 Main Gallery 7pm-11pm

Ken Wilder in Collaboration with Dieter Pietch

A newly commissioned site-specific architectural installation and digital video performance. The installation arises out of the absent architecture of La Corbusier's church at La Tourette. The space is 'inhabited' by the video performance

Ken Wilder has both practised and taught architecture. He studied environmental design at the Royal College of Art. In 1998 he had a joint exhibition with Julian Maynard Smith - Spaces and Narrations - at the 97-99 Gallery, London. In the crypt-like basement of the Gallery, he exhibited San Lorenzo Trilogy, three large architectural constructions. A book, funded by the Arts Council of England, accompanied the exhibition. He is currently senior lecturer in interior and spatial design at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Dieter Pietsch is an artist with work in a number of major international public collections. He has received the Art Prize of the City of Ulm, an Arts Council of Great Britain Award, and an Artist-in-Residence award at the University of Edinburgh. He has created installations for the Rosemary Butcher Dance Company and Stage Design for the Theater in der Westentasche, Ulm, Germany. Recent exhibitions include: Parrallelen, at the Kunstlerkreis Oertenau Galerie, Offenburg, Germany. He is a visiting lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Waterfall 6 South Wing Gallery 8pm-9pm

From the sequence of 48 waterfalls by the Theatre of Mistakes - 1977

Anthony Howell directs two performances of Waterfall 6 - originally performed by The Theatre of Mistakes at the Hayward Gallery and Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. Performers control the movement of the water by pouring cups of water to each other, balanced on a structure of tables and chairs controlled strictly by the recitation of verse.

Anthony Howell was founder and director of The Theatre of Mistakes. He is the author of The analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and Practice (Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999), and is co-author of Elements of Performance Art. He has also published a novel and seven books of poetry. He recently directed The Infernal Triangle at the ICA. After the performance Anthony Howell will be available to sign copies of his books.

Performers: Hugo Danino, Rene Eyre, Anthony Howell, Navraj Sidhu, Lorna Stewart, Alexandra Wood.

Julian Maynard Smith/Station House Opera 291 Bar Screen 7-8pm and 9-11pm

A continuous video installation of architectural performances presenting an architecture of constant mutation, blurring the distinction between the construction site and the ruin.

Julian Maynard Smith is the founder and artistic director of Station House Opera. Since 1980 the company has devised and created over 20 productions. He has received the Cambridge University Fellowship at Kettle’s Yard and in 1997 the award from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in New York. Recent work includes: Dresdenn nn rrrrrr, commissioned by Theater der Welt Dresden; Salisbury Proverbs, commissioned by the Salisbury Festival; Roadmetal, Sweetbread, performed at the ICA, Hayward Gallery, Munich, Lausanne, Madrid, Budapest, Dijon, Weimar, Geneva; Good Neighbours (solo work), Offene Räume, Stuggart.

KEN WILDER in collaboration with DIETER PIETSCH

for my father, who died on 04 November 2000 during the preparation of the installation

# 226 is inspired by Le Corbusier's church at La Tourette, near Lyon. 226cms is the height of a 182.8cm (6 foot) man with his arm raised directly above his head. The number was central to Le Modulor proportional system developed by Le Corbusier in the 1940s and expounded by this monastic building. Various architectural elements establish a datum of 226cms above the lower floor of the church at La Tourette. A theoretical proposal to unite a plane floating at this level, suspended just above the altar, with the central axis of the church becomes a functional narrative that transforms the central gallery at the 291.

The installation intimates the absent architecture that has occasioned it. The altar now reads as a void within the installation, an absence mirrored by the 291's own absent altar (the gallery is a former church). The plane now floats just 134cms above the floor of the gallery, the height of a penitent kneeling with arm raised. This level is established architecturally by a translucent wall, developed in collaboration with Dieter Pietsch, onto which three video projectors continuously project a figure that 'inhabits' the space. The prostrations of the Dominican monks that first inhabited La Tourette are transformed into a secular performance that is both confined and liberated by the architectural proportions.

The installation is trulv a collaborative venture. I would like to thank the Tollowing

Mick Stickland and Stefan Willis for their invaluable expertise in constructing the installation, and Michael Sanders for

manufacturing the metal components. Their generosity, during a ditticult last week, enabled me to complete the work

Stephen Rose of Techno Lightina. for suppling lighting for the space

Phil Harrison and Jeff Jaffa for their help in filming and editing the video, and Chris Swain for his role as performer.

The installation has received financial assistance from Chelsea College of Art and Design.