Unusual things were taking place at London’s Southbank Centre this summer, as the artist Carsten Höller was given free rein at the Hayward Gallery. An array of installations – both eclectic and eccentric – were brought together for the exhibition, named Decisions.
Höller caused a buzz with his specially-commissioned 15-metre-long (49 foot) slides on the gallery’s exterior – which allowed visitors to travel from the glass pyramid ceiling to the entrance level – and inside the venue things were equally playful.
One highlight was two moving robotic beds that roamed the galleries, entitled Two Roaming Beds (Grey). For £300 ($461, €421), you and your guest could spend the night in the gallery, tucked up beneath your duvet as you trundled slowly amongst the artworks on a bed-machine on wheels.
Visitors were treated to Flying Machines, which gave the sensation of flying over Waterloo Bridge and The Pinocchio Effect, with technology that made visitors feel as though their nose was growing.
The Isomeric Slides, which have been already featured at the nearby Tate Modern, come at the climax of the experience, giving visitors the choice of how to leave. Built onto the gallery’s exterior wall, these constituted “a graceful sculptural installation,” according to Höller, leaving visitors “experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness.”