Ryan Gander
Main Reception Area
A Machine To Send You To Some Other New Place (2025)
Interactive machine, printing random coordinates for guests. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.
Curatorial Analysis
The placement of A Machine To Send You To Some Other New Place within AKI's Grade II-listed interior navigates strict conservation compliance while generating a profound conceptual tension. By printing physical coordinates for unknown destinations, the work shifts the viewer's perception from commercial dining to an open-ended, imaginative journey — transforming a transient moment into an unexpected point of departure.
On the Core Concept
The machine generates physical tickets with coordinates of places the viewer has likely never visited, turning a transient moment in a restaurant into an unexpected point of departure for a mental or physical journey.
On Materiality & Time
Time is the ultimate material. By rendering geographic coordinates on a physical, ephemeral slip of paper, the work anchors a digital, globalised reality back into the tactile, immediate present.
On Connection to WA
True harmony is not about passive blending; it is an active dialogue. The work creates a harmonious friction with the architectural history of the venue, grounding the contemporary experience in a broader, imaginative landscape.
Artist Portrait
"Art here is play, chance, and personal journey. A machine that sends you somewhere you have never been is, ultimately, a machine for living differently."
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
- Lisson Gallery, London & New York (ongoing)
- Venice Biennale (multiple editions)
- Documenta 13, Kassel (2012)
- The Hayward Gallery, London
- Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
- Serpentine Gallery, London
SELECTED INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTIONS
- Tate Modern, London
- MoMA, New York
- Centre Pompidou, Paris
- Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
- Arts Council Collection, UK
