A blank slate experiment
Metro Tuesday, July 31, 2007
ART

Anarchic collective Reactor has flipped its modus operandum on its head for Destination: Geodecity

A lot of activities have been redefined as art in recent years, but the humble camping trip hasn't been one of them. Until now, that is. This weekend, Nottingham based collective Reactor will be gathering followers from three cities and whisking them out into the local countryside to act as the founders of a new society, living in versions of the geodesic domes designed by maverick architect and philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller.

It's a surprising turn for the anarchic collective, whose members have previously been better known as aspiring iconoclasts with a penchant for smashing things up rather than any idealistic leanings they might have been harbouring.

'That's true,' admits Jonathan Waring, a long-time Reactor member and one of the brains behind Geodecity, 'but I suppose if you look at the history of Reactor closely, this is really the flipside of the other things we've done. Past works like Total GHAOS were about putting visitors to the show in control of what happened. Which is what this new piece is doing, too.'

GHAOS was the title that Reactor used for a long series of performances and hands on exhibitions made with a view to subverting the usual habit of placing static work in gallery spaces for quiet appreciation. Modelled on live art and installation, a typical early Reactor show was more likely to feature a 'smash it up stall' full of plaster casts and people often the audience themselves raising havoc in masks and cardboard costumes.

'The idea behind Reactor has always been about getting the audience involved, and all that work was really experimenting with different ways of achieving that,' continues Waring. 'By the time we did Total GHAOS in 2005, people were dropping in as passers by, but then staying on for the whole weekend. I can't think of any other art event I've been involved with that has ever managed to catch the imaginations of people who just stumble across it in the same way. Usually if non-art people find themselves at a gallery, they look around nervously then leave fairly quickly looking a bit bemused.'

Having found a way of engaging audiences, Waring notes that Destination: Geodecity marks Reactor's attempt to take their work to the next level. They've also added a dash of positive thinking to the mix, using the 1960s icon of Buckminster Fuller's dome and ideas culled from the writings of former idealists such as Charles Fourier and Sir Thomas More as inspiration.

'We're taking our reference points from the whole history of writings on utopias and those traditions of science fiction where societies are given a clean slate,' he says. 'But we're not planning things out or directing the research in any obvious way. The idea is to leave it to those who attend to decide what happens. It's an experiment. All we're doing is providing a space and a framework but, once it begins, we'll be as keen to see how it turns out as anyone else.'

Waring also notes that the village created will be left standing for an unspecified period of time after the experiment ends; like an archaeological relic abandoned by some futuristic civilization in the East Midlands countryside. The one thing he's not worried about is that the weekend turns into a scenario from William Golding's The Lord Of The Flies. 'I know that utopias don't have a great track record of success,' he admits, 'but we've only got 25 hours to do it, so it's not long enough for anything to go very wrong. It's just a good chunk of time to work with, long enough to set a few pointers for further explorations in the future.'

Wayne Burrows