Tarek Atoui's Experiential Sound Installation at Tate Modern
Tarek Atoui, a renowned artist and composer, is revolutionizing the perception of sound art with his ambitious installation at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. This work, developed for the 11th Hyundai Commission, seeks to redefine how an audience interacts with musical expression by transforming the architectural space itself into an instrument. Eschewing traditional auditory experiences, Atoui's creation engages multiple senses, exploring sound through physical sensation, sculptural forms, and collective participation. The exhibition promises a unique journey where the boundaries between music, sculpture, and performance art blur, offering a profound exploration of acoustic phenomena within a monumental industrial setting.
Atoui, born in Beirut in 1980 and based in Paris, has dedicated over two decades to pushing the frontiers of musical and sculptural integration. His artistic method involves crafting and re-imagining musical devices, often collaborating with various experts including artisans, engineers, and fellow musicians. His past works frequently incorporate diverse materials such as glass, water, and ceramics, and employ unusual mechanical systems to produce sounds through direct touch, movement, breath, or vibration. This approach culminates in installations that allow the audience to encounter music as a tangible, spatial entity, rather than merely an auditory one.
For this specific commission, Atoui meticulously designed four distinct groups of instruments, each selected to harmonize with the immense scale and resonant acoustics of the Turbine Hall. These include contemporary interpretations of traditional Asian sheng instruments, activated by computer-controlled airflow, and enlarged versions of Central Asian karnai horns, brought to life through 3D printing technology. Additionally, substantial Korean drums contribute another layer to the sonic landscape, while specially engineered textiles serve as innovative sound-generating apparatuses. These diverse elements converge to form an unconventional orchestra, where ancient musical traditions blend seamlessly with modern manufacturing techniques, challenging the conventional distinction between artistic sculpture and functional sound equipment.
A particularly captivating aspect of the installation involves large fabric elements, a result of Atoui's collaboration with Satoshi Kondo and Issey Miyake. These textiles, coated with conductive graphite paint, function as oscillators, generating sounds as they move within the expansive hall. In other areas, stone slabs embedded with speakers transmit vibrations directly, enabling visitors to literally feel the sonic frequencies. Such elements underscore Atoui's enduring fascination with forms of listening that extend beyond mere auditory perception, a pursuit influenced by his extensive work with deaf and hard-of-hearing communities. In this orchestral setup, the human body itself becomes an integral conduit for experiencing sound.
The installation also interrogates the interplay between an artwork and its environment. Rather than treating the Turbine Hall as a passive container, Atoui leverages its imposing height, natural reverberation, and ambient conditions to inform the very structure of the composition. Acoustic and electronic soundscapes intertwine with the building’s inherent industrial character, while the physical presence of the instruments—a visual tapestry of pipes, drums, and textiles—creates a dynamic landscape of resonating surfaces. Catherine Wood, Interim Director of Tate Modern, emphasizes the crucial role of architectural space in Atoui’s ongoing exploration of sound and vibration, making the museum's grand public interior an ideal canvas for his artistic vision.
Live performance and collaborative engagement are central tenets of this commission. Over 40 musicians are slated to interact with the installation throughout its six-month run, introducing spontaneous improvisation and fresh sonic arrangements. This dynamic engagement ensures the work continues to evolve, eschewing the notion of a static, finished composition. Such an open-ended methodology reflects Atoui’s belief in music as a communal endeavor, where the intricate connections among instruments, performers, architecture, and audiences are as vital as the sounds themselves. The result is a museum installation that defies a single, fixed soundtrack, offering an ever-changing auditory and tactile journey.
Atoui's presentation marks the eleventh iteration of the Hyundai Commission, an annual initiative that invites international artists to conceive site-specific works for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Since its inception, this series has attracted more than 19 million visitors, offering a prominent platform for groundbreaking artistic experiments within one of London's most iconic cultural landmarks. The enduring collaboration between Tate and Hyundai Motor, established in 2014 and recently prolonged until 2036, continues to champion installations that push the boundaries of contemporary art and foster active public participation. The exhibition, curated by Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva, will be accessible to the public from October 13th, 2026, to April 11th, 2027, with complimentary admission. Through an ever-shifting ensemble of instruments, materials, and live performances, Atoui invites visitors to navigate the museum in a novel manner, where sound transcends its auditory nature to become something that can be perceived visually, felt physically, and experienced collectively. In a space traditionally associated with monumental visual spectacles, Atoui's intervention suggests that some of the most compelling experiences in the Turbine Hall may not require sight at all.