24/7

Contributors include Douglas Coupland, Mat Collishaw, Harun Farocki, Pierre Huyghe, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Kelly Richardson, Kateřina Šedá, Pilvi Takala, Addie Wagenknecht, and ten artists and designers from Somerset House Studios, including Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.

With every moment seemingly an opportunity to connect and work, unrelenting pressure to produce and consume, sleep itself monitored and commodified, how we cope is one of the most urgent contemporary issues affecting us all.

Inspired by Jonathan Crary’s book of the same name, and curated by Sarah Cook, 24/7 & holds up a mirror to our always-on culture and invites you to step outside of your day-to-day routine to engage, reflect and reset.

Installations include

Tatsuo Miyajima’s meditative isolation chamber Life Palace (tea room), in which individuals can climb inside, shut the door and bathe in the blue glow of LED countdowns.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s new immersive orchestration of a machine generated dawn chorus, highlighting the impact of 24/7 urban lifestyles on bird populations.

Daily tous les jours’ I heard there was a secret chord, where visitors can unite with listeners around the world to hum the chorus of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah at the end of the exhibition.

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard’s Somnoproxy invites guests to close their eyes for a futuristic storytelling experience in an immersive private auditorium complete with Dream Machine.

Other exhibition highlights include Nastja Säde Rönkkö’s project 6 months without, in which she spent 6 months living and working from Somerset House Studios without the internet; Roman Signer’s Bett, where the artist attempts to sleep with a drone helicopter hovering above his head; Thomson & Craighead’s Beacon, a railway flap sign continuously relaying live web searches as they are being made around the world; Tega Brain and Surya Mattu's unfit bits, where the artist fools fitness tracking tools into thinking she is taking exercise, and Alan Warburton’s series of 3D-scanned self-portraits depicting his worktime naps in a visual effects studio in Beijing.

Visitor Information

As a guide we recommend allowing 1.5 hours – 2 hours in the exhibition. Please be aware that if you book the 19.00 session Wednesday to Friday the exhibition will close at 20.00, if you book the 17.00 session Saturday to Tuesday the exhibition will close at 18.00. 

If possible please avoid bringing large bags or rucksacks with you as we do not have a cloakroom onsite. Rucksacks will not be permitted to be carried on your back and must be handheld to avoid damage to artworks.

To experience Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard's Somnoproxy, on arrival please speak to a member of the Visitor Experience team to sign up for this experience. Please note there are a limited numbers of places and during peak times we can become fully booked. Please also note this artwork contains flashing lights. If you have any questions or concerns please speak to a member of staff.

Groups of Young People
For groups of ten and over, tickets are £3.00 per young person aged 13-18 and one free group leader ticket is allocated for every ten students. For allocated time slots please see the Learning Enquiry Form.

Header image courtesy of Douglas Coupland, Slogans for the 21st Century, and Heidi Coppock-Beard, via Getty Images

24/7 is supported by world renowned lighting company Signify and will include new work commissioned as a partnership between Somerset House and design hub A/D/O by MINI. Daily Tous Les Jours’ I Heard There Was A Secret Chord is supported by the Québec Government Office, London. Canadian artists exhibiting in 24/7 have been supported by Canada House. Pilvi Takala’s The Stroker is generously supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation.