{"id":17057,"date":"2016-05-10T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=17057"},"modified":"2016-05-10T01:43:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T00:43:43","slug":"a-tower-of-800-whispering-radios-cildo-meireles-babel-at-the-tate-modern-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/a-tower-of-800-whispering-radios-cildo-meireles-babel-at-the-tate-modern-london\/","title":{"rendered":"A tower of 800 whispering radios: Cildo Meireles&#8217; Babel at the Tate Modern, London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-01.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I loved this installation at the Tate Modern by\u00a0Brazilian conceptual artist,\u00a0Cildo Meireles.<\/p>\n<p>The work takes the form of a tower constructed from 800 radios, each one tuned to a different channel and set at the minimum volume to which it is audible.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-02.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/whats-on\/tate-modern\/exhibition\/cildo-meireles\/cildo-meireles-explore-exhibition\/cildo-meireles-4\" target=\"_blank\">Tate&#8217;s website<\/a> explains the message behind the structure, which was built in 2001:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[The work] &#8230;relates to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel: a tower tall enough to reach the heavens.<\/p>\n<p>Affronted by this structure, God caused the builders to speak in different languages and, ceasing to understand one another, become divided and scattered across the earth. According to myth, this inability to communicate became the cause of all mankind\u2019s conflicts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-03.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Babel\u00a0<\/em>consists of around 800 radios of varying ages, from the large, valve radios which make up the bottom tiers of the tower to the smaller mass-produced electronic radios of recent years at the top, with their small size\u00a0emphasising the height of the work.<\/p>\n<p>With the tower presenting examples of\u00a0radios from the 1920s to the present day, the artist has described it as \u2018an archaeological sample of events\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-04.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Due to the time-based nature of the medium of radio, no two experiences of this work are ever the\u00a0same.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-05.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The work reminded me of,\u00a0\u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/1001-tv-sets-slowly-tune-into-white-noise-david-hall-ambika-p3-london\/\" target=\"_blank\">1001 TV Sets (End Piece)\u2019, 1972-2012<\/a>,\u2019 a\u00a0work by video art pioneer David Hall which\u00a0featured over 1,000 TV sets, all tuned to random terrestrial\u00a0stations.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-06.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-07.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-08.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-09.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Bottom tier valve radios.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-10.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hipster &#8216;tache.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-11.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-12.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-13.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-14.jpg\" alt=\"A tower of 800 noisy radios: Cildo Meireles Babel at the Tate Modern, London, May 2016\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Background:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"735\" height=\"414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QmpkMMFCPv8?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><strong>More:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/whats-on\/tate-modern\/display\/cildo-meireles\" target=\"_blank\">Tate Modern<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cildo_Meireles\" target=\"_blank\">Cildo Meirles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I loved this installation at the Tate Modern by\u00a0Brazilian conceptual artist,\u00a0Cildo Meireles. The work takes the form of a tower constructed from 800 radios, each one tuned to a different &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,456,17,193],"tags":[34,1413,1412,1188,10,1415,1414,1411,202,1353,633],"class_list":["post-17057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-news","category-photos","category-places","tag-art","tag-babel","tag-cildo-meireles","tag-installation","tag-london","tag-modern-art","tag-radio","tag-radios","tag-tate","tag-tate-modern","tag-tower"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/tate-modern-cildo-meireles-babel-01-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4r7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17057"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17068,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057\/revisions\/17068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}