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Reactor is an experimental space into which anyone curious is invited…

The last event in the doomed factory building on Ilkeston Road saw the culmination of 3 years activity within the space. Moving away from the ad-hock art-warehouse-party nature of Apocalypse Soon, Reactor was to be a careful sculpted exhibition of dynamic installation. All the works within the show would evolve from extensive group dialogue, encouraging a collaborative approach to conception and creation. All the works would revolve around the ideas of evolution and interaction both during their making and throughout the event, as the visitors influence feeds back into the work. Joint curation would produce a harmonized exhibition of separate but intrinsically linked art works that would mesh into a unique labyrinth of evolving possibilities waiting to be explored.

For the ten days of the show, visitors of all ages were encouraged to step out of the usually passive role of the viewer into an active investigation of their own relationship with their immediate surroundings. Reactor existed as a journey through a network of exchanges between everyone involved - with members of the group being present at all times to question and be questioned by. Increasing participation in creative activity, and providing the public with direct access to diverse art forms by operating outside of the established gallery framework is the common goal of the group. The Reactor event was the first true collaboration by the artists and from where the group derives it’s name.

On entering the dilapidated building and climbing the narrow stairs visitors were confronted with two works by Phil Henderson. Spectral Megaphone, a megaphone suspended from the ceiling by rope over a metal detector. As the megaphone was swung above, the detector registered it’s proximity and a transmitter attached sent the signals to the megaphone which played them back as a continuous tone that oscillated in pitch with it’s movement. TV Ball is a television screen at the end of a small-mirrored tunnel; the viewer can direct a CCTV camera attached to the outside. On looking in, the angle of the mirrors creates the illusion of a giant sphere of television screens showing the images captured by the camera.
Henderson uses technology and simple scientific principles to create playful works that inspire musing on the mechanics of the world around us, highlighting the genius of human invention but reminding us of the natural laws to which we are inextricably bound. The dualistic relationship between the megaphone and the metal detector, both objects response dependant on the other, and neither active without the physical action of a person, precipitates thoughts of our dependence on technology and equally it’s uselessness without us. TV Ball muses on the power of television, how it surrounds and infiltrates our society at every level, the influence it has over us and status we ascribe to those who appear on it.

Welding by Joe Kelly was an evolving work where the artist would continuously create works throughout the ten days of the exhibition according to the whims of the visiting public. Inviting those passing through the space to write suggestions on the walls, Kelly would then transform their scribbling into sculptures by bending and welding scrap metal. Relinquishing conceptual control of artistic practice and allowing the viewer to decide upon what they viewed, Kelly reversed the rolls of creator and observer, questioning the mysticism around artistic inspiration and motivation.

After receiving a torch and trowel it was then time to enter Louis Hubert’s Wilko Warriors. In the darkness participants traversed a wooden walkway that stood over an archaeological-style dig, buried beneath were hundreds of foot-tall casts of the Chinese terracotta army which visitor were encouraged to dig in the earth to uncover. The work investigates ideas of value and how this links to authenticity. Questions surround the ‘real’ terracotta army and whether they are genuinely what they were thought to be, but how we quantify worth in all it’s forms is complex. Art, more so than most things, has no intrinsic value; Hubert’s work highlights these abstract ideas of the value of objects and questions their relevance.

Paint Catapult by Dan Williamson consisted of a large ‘shooting range’, the back wall covered with transparent bags filled with paint, which the visitors were invited to shoot at using a handheld catapult and ball-bearings. Once punctured the paint would pour out of the bags and down the ramp in front of the back wall. The fairground attraction is a continuing theme throughout the works of the group, something that has infused Reactor events and is often linked to their unique identity. The pleasure taken in the bursting of the paint bags by children and adults alike illustrates the destructive tendencies in everyone but contrasts starkly with the beauty of the streams of paint that pour forth as a result of this decimation.

Flock by Dave Bond, was an installation that initially consisted of 500 black origami birds individually suspended throughout a space. Before entering participants were invited to make their own bird from brightly coloured paper and substitute it for one of the black ones already installed. Each bird was stamped with an individual serial number and a website address which the participant could visit and, after typing in the number, receive an individual message unique to their bird. Over the 10 days the work transformed from an entirely black flock to one first speckled and eventually overwhelmed with an array of colours. The second manifestation of this continuing work, Flock explores ideas of the imperfections and futilities of human endeavour and an individual's identity within civilization, how we are all catalogued and numbered and the de-humanising effect this has. The work is an unsettling spectacle, both serene and sinister, but in this installation evolving over time from one of apparent uniformity into a jumble of colour and shapes, becoming less menacing as it loses it’s uniformity.

In Windbags by Phil Henderson four inflatable mattresses with penny whistles attached to the air holes are 'played' by visitors sitting upon them, their weight forcing out the air with piecing results. Henderson again playing with physics, toying with ideas of action and consequence and how a person’s physical presence affects the world around them.

On entering the building careful observers would have seen a dispensers containing plastic bags and the invitation to ‘Take-part’, around the building are various other dispensers with acetate drawings inside. Participants can collect these as they move throughout the building forming their own collection/composite. The work exists as an intervention into space, both the physical space (its surroundings) and the space of participation itself. Elements are removed from the overall structure to be placed within your own personnel holding, however these elements will not add up to something greater than themselves, nor sum themselves up. In this work Russell explores our motivation behind participation, asking if confronted with an esoteric task will we comply blindly with the expectation of understanding in return.

Ape by Lara Greene was a darkened room that, on entering, the visitors were confronted by the formidable sight of an 8-foot puppet ape. Requiring four people to operate each of its two arm, body and head, the ape only came to life through the co-operation of the people controlling it. Provoking thoughts of humanities dominance over nature and our relationship to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, the ape was a magnificent spectacle, powerful and fearsome when controlled but forlorn and helpless when not.

Other works featured in the exhibition included the Magnetic Wall; a huge piece of sheet metal covered in magnetic letters and symbols for the visitors to arrange as they pleased. Chewing-gum Mickey by Tom Miles was an out-line picture of Mickey Mouse which visitors could ‘colour in’ by chewing the various coloured chewing gums available and sticking them onto the picture. Video Cuts by Dan Williamson, was a bizarre collection of fast changing clips of random television and film footage.