Bethan Johnson

V&A Friday Late

As the opening event of REVEAL, a week-long festival celebrating the opening of the V&A Exhibition Road Quarter, V&A Friday Late teamed up with the online music broadcasting platform Boiler Room to present a dynamic programme of experimental sounds. Audiences where invited to explore what happens when the digital and physical collide; stepping into pixel-rich interfaces to question the freedom of online broadcasting, and join global link-ups live from New York and Tokyo.

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Image: Hydar Dewachi

V&A Friday Late

Signs and symbols have always played an important role in human communication, from the development of diplomacy, to the waging of war. Audiences unlocked the science of codes and ciphers to discover alternative languages and the secret messages embedded in our culture and artifacts. They where invited to question how emoji help us communicate in the digital age, learn the body language secrets hidden in our dance floor moves and interrogate the effects of computer coding, as we interpret the world around us and uncover what it all means.

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Image: Hydar Dewachi

V&A Friday Late

With Virtual Reality headsets hitting the high street and augmented reality sending players hunting through their neighbourhoods, 2016 saw our virtual and physical worlds collide like never before. This event distorted reality with talks, workshops, games and playful interventions.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

Martina Piazza (Dir)

Shot overnight and featuring sublime sequential shots, this short film follows two ballet dancers as they explore the museum after hours. The film, alongside a live performance was premiered at the V&A Friday Late.

Made in collaboration between Boiler Room, English National Ballet and the V&A Museum, with original music created by Overmono. Connie Vowles and William Beagley from English National Ballet, with choreography by George Williamson.

Image: Boiler Room

This is Public Space is a series of web commissions, that sort to interrogating notions of public space online and authenticity in the digital age.

Artists included Lawrence Lek; who used the visual language of gaming to question the uncertainly of a post-Brexit London, Juneau Projects; who used online forums to develop a post apocalyptic narrative in collaboration with readers, John Walter; who filmed a short using an iPhone to highlight the role of smartphones in how we experience to the city, Laura Eldret; who questioned individuality and the masses in online culture, Ruth Beale; who used live streamed drone footage to reflect on the concept of the common and Hannah Black; who developed a virtual reality re-enactment of being on MDMA.

The commissions where hosted on UP Projects website.

Image: Polimekanos

V&A Friday Late

For the October Friday Late, the V&A teamed up with online magazine and collective gal-dem. Made up of over 50 women of colour, gal-dem offered their take on the world. With an all-female line up, audiences where invited to twerk to empowerment, share a soul food recipe and hear London's best MCs.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

V&A Friday Late

In a second collaboration with the V&A, the online magazine gal-dem shared their take on the world through the lens of film. Audiences stepped into Hollywood’s iconic posters to challenge #OscarsSoWhite, perfected their Thumka, took part in a Bollywood dance off and learnt how to shoot a film on their mobile.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

Tereza Buskova, Boyd Webb, Richard DeDomenici, James Wilkes & Bradby, Carey Young and Via Vaudeville

The Charter of the Forest was the first document to give land access and ownership rights to common people. Working in collaboration with The Forestry Commission, Charter of the Forest commissioned temporary installations and performances for the woodlands surrounding Lincoln, which asked what does the forest, land rights and the acts that govern it mean to us today?

V&A Friday Late

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. But how far have we come in the fight for equality? Audiences could perfect their Polari in a lesson of language resistance, hear activists at the V&A’s speakers corner, revel in bold performance, and challenge traditional gender definitions by stepping into a 21st century Kinsey Scale to find out just how queer you are.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

The Floating Cinema is an extraordinary mobile arts venue, which hosts a varied and vibrant programme of free on- board screenings, eccentric canal tours, talks and workshops, as well as large scale outdoor film screenings for canal side audiences. Commissioning new films, music scores and Live Art, The Floating Cinema enables artists to explore the city from a new perspective, as the boat navigates London’s waterways moving at a maximum speed of 4 mph.

V&A Friday Late

From uploading selfies to tracking wellbeing, our desire for privacy in the digital age is at odds with our appetite to share our lives online. As an increasing number of devices we wear and carry connect to the internet, capture our personal information and exploit our privacy, this V&A Friday Late invited audiences to take a data detox and learn how to subvert your smart technologies.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

Walker & Bromwich

The first and last ever banquet of the Ancient Order of Eccentrics explored the ways in which people re-invent themselves and sought to re-ignite the revolutionary spirit of the eccentric. Drawing inspiration from historic secret societies, guests were initiated into the ancient order and asked to share their tale of eccentric genealogy.

V&A Friday Late

More than the hobbyists’ pursuit, maker communities are disrupting manufacturing. Shared spaces offer a new amalgam of craft, industry and technology, where both tools and knowledge are pooled. Audiences joined London’s maker spaces to resist mass production and uncover how hacked machines and open source design are changing the way we make and live. Exploring production process and questioning whether this a sustainable movement?

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

V&A Friday Late

Water is the most abundant material on Earth. It comprises up to 73% of the human body, covers three quarters of the planet, is a source of life and healing, as well as a vital building material component. It is also a natural resource under threat. For the October V&A Friday Late, audiences traced the spirituality of the Ganges and uncovered the impact of industry on China's drowned landscapes. They could quench their thirst at our water bar, where we ask if algae can break our addiction to plastic and expose what tap water is really comprised of. Drift among ocean debris and question what a water-less future would look like.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

V&A Friday Late

With dating apps ever increasing, finding love is now as much about an algorithm as physical attraction. This Friday Late got audiences to swipe, like, and explore the future of dating; looking at the politics of sex and relationships, questioning how we build and sustain them today and into the future. Watch out cupid!

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

V&A Friday Late

From the lo-fi and familiar to the new and cutting-edge, audiences stepped into the V&A’s digital playground. Bringing together game designers, artists and architects, we challenged audiences to get creative. Working together to design alternative realities, exploring independent games in our arcade of the future and figuring out just how big you can build with Velcro.

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Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

Matthew Cowan

The Company of Ringers of Lincoln Cathedral are the earliest known group of bell ringers still performing their duties today. Creating a new film, Cowan captured the ritual of ringing the cathedral bells with The Company, who have been dedicated to such activity for nearly four hundred years. Alongside the film, Cowan developed a new live performance which explored the repetitive movements of bell ringing and the mechanism of the bell ropes.

V&A Friday Late

As plans are afoot to construct a new Silk Road and the world’s largest airport is being built in Beijing, the November Friday Late asked how China is reshaping its position in today’s globalised world. Audiences where invited to uncover a rural rebellion as Chinese artists abandon cities to create new village communities, watch trail blazing female Imams from China’s Muslim community, and discover how new notions of gender fluidity and sexuality are empowering artists. Audiences got their hands dirty crafting the perfect dumpling and built their own robot from the electronics of Shenzhen. A celebration of the contemporary art, design, sounds and states of China in flux.

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Sino Flux was curated in collaboration with Zara Arshad, founder of Design China.

Image: Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

Rebecca Beinart

Part medicine cabinet, part archive, The Bureau of Urban Wilds is a mobile sculpture that brings together research into the rich history of local activism, trade and migration in Deptford. During the three-month residency Beinart hosted a series of medicine making workshops, walking tours and shared meals to explore the territories between art, ecology and politics. The residency culminated in the production of a herbal remedy book, which brought together recipes donated by the local community.

Kurt Johannessen, Tim Etchells, Benedicte Clementsen, Ian Giles, Alexander Stevenson, Blue Firth, Ben Rivers, Thomas Darby and Laura Mahony

Red Herrings and Chinese Whispers explored a mysterious island located in the heart of Lincoln’s historic port. Although small in stature, this island embodied local folklore, including stories of the Yellowbelly Imp and even buried treasure. Red Herrings and Chinese Whispers was a weekend festival, which brought together artists and experts to discover its facts, fictions and mythology and develop a new layer of history for the island.

Leah Lovett

Contra Band brought together musicians and audiences from Brazil and the UK for an experimental live performance of songs censored in both countries between 1964-1985. These dates mark the duration of the military dictatorship in Brazil.

Audiences were invited on a floating journey, whilst we connected to a live link-up with CASA 24, an artist-led venue based in Rio De Janeiro. Musicians in both venues attempted to learn, play and understand their counterparts censored songs.

Contra Band was a collaborative perfomance between Brazilian musician Raphael Dos Santos and UK musician Nicholas Underwood.