AL + AL
Incidents of Travel in the Multiverse
2016
HOME Manchester, RNCM: Royal Northern College of Music
Curator | exhibition, with Sarah Perks
Producer | Icarus at the Edge of Time, North of England Premiere with Tomas Harold
Writer | alongside AL+AL, Brian Greene, Grant Morrison, Sarah Perks, Marina Warner, Sophie Linfield, Toby Clarkson of the accompanying book
Icarus at the Edge of Time is based on the book by Brian Greene
Music by Philip Glass, narrative adapted by Brian Greene and David Henry Hwang
Film Created and Directed by Al & Al
© 2010 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc
Icarus at the Edge of Time was commissioned and produced by the World Science Festival (New York), with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Southbank Centre (London), with the Royal Society. The North of England premiere was a co-production with HOME and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Duncan Ward.
Book supported by Hayward Publishing and Cornerhouse Publications
All images copyright AL + AL
Incidents of Travel in the Multiverse was a visionary new solo exhibition of film, drawing, installation and a live concert hall performance, conceived from AL and AL’s epic sci-fi odyssey and united by three journeys the artists have undertaken with groundbreaking scientists.
The first journey, Icarus at the Edge of Time, is a mesmerising re-imagining of the original myth, where Icarus travels not to the sun but to the edge of a black hole. Made in collaboration with composer Philip Glass and America’s most famous physicist, Professor Brian Greene, this ground-breaking film brings Einstein’s theory of general relativity to visceral life. The exhibition featured a triptych installation of the three movements in the gallery, and a live concert hall performance with the BBC Philharmonic.
The second journey, The Creator, sees thinking machines from the future travel back in time in search of their creator Alan Turing, father of the computer age, who sowed the seeds for artificial intelligence. The exhibition includes AL and AL’s original drawings alongside an installation of their Prix du Jury award winning film.
The third journey, The Demiurge, was a world premiere of the artists’ new work inspired by Francis Crick’s Panspermia theory on the origins of life, and the work of nanobiophysicist Bart Hoogenboom who created the world’s first ‘real’ images of DNA. Starring a mind bending performance of a thousand genetically modified clones by actress Sophie Linfield, The Demiurge travels across the Multiverse to find a cure for death.
The exhibition launched AL and AL’s new publication, Incidents of Travel in the Multiverse, a cosmic travelogue in the artist’s own words and images, featuring essays on the Multiverse by Professor Brian Greene, legendary graphic novelist Grant Morrison and world renowned author and mythographer Marina Warner.
