Friday 28 November 2008, 19.00

The Room is the first event in an ongoing series of collaborations by three artists. 16mm films by Luke Fowler and Peter Todd are intertwined with live guitar improvisation by Keith Rowe. The filmmakers work independently, recording in different rooms, then bring the films together for each unique performance.

Tate Modern presents the first installment of The Room. The Room is cumulative, building every time it is shown, with another two films added in each subsequent performance. The filmed rooms are unpopulated, yet they harbour residues of human activity, signs of historical and current events, personal effects, the random. The rooms are unique - acoustically and visually - hidden frequencies are unearthed; radio static and random broadcasts dialled in; fleeting movements of light captured.

The contributors span three distinct generations. They were first brought together for the gallery exhibition Memory Is A Motherfucker, curated by Peter Taylor for the 2008 Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Programme duration 45 min

Tate Modern  Level 2 Gallery
Free
on a first-come, first-served basis

    

Luke Fowler (born 1978) has become known for his elaborate and poetic portrayals of past radical social experiments, including What You See is Where You Are At (2001) about the Kingsley Hall in the 1960s, and Pilgrimage from Scattered Points (2006) about Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra. He is represented by The Modern Institute, Glasgow and will have an exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich in autumn 2008. He was selected for the Tate Triennial in 2006, and in 2008 he won the first Jarman Award.

Keith Rowe (born 1940) is a guitarist and painter. In the mid 1960s, Rowe was a founding member of the free improvisation group AMM, and is seen by many as a godfather of electro-acoustic improvisation. Rowe has maintained his early interest in utilizing painting as a stimulus, generation of ideas, and as score material for musical performance. The Room is in part a tribute to two of his most important influences, Cornelius Cardew and Mark Rothko.

Peter Todd (born 1955) was a founding member of artist run space Ayton Basement in Newcastle Upon Tyne in the late 1970s, and is known for his personal short films and curated film programmes and exhibitions, including Garden Pieces and the evolving series of four programmes Film Poems (1998-2003).  His most recent project is Into View, a two programme dialogue with Berlin-based film maker Ute Aurand, presented in London and Berlin in June 2008. His films are distributed by LUX.

This event is related to the Rothko exhibition