Merge begun four years ago with
Better Bankside, Tate Modern and the Illuminate Production's sitting round a table
coming up with the festival for Bankside.
We came up with the word Merge because it's about collaboration between artists, art organisations
as well as collaborations between local businesses and the local community.
The highlights for this year's festival are
a piece by Alex Chinneck
called A Pound of Flesh for 50p
which is a melting building
It's to do with the history of the area, like many of the things in Merge Festival.
So we looked into the history of a site
and there used to be a candle factory there
many, many years ago.
Essentially, what we've done is we've built an entire two storey house from wax.
What we will do over 30 days, throughout October, is melt it bit by bit.
The roof has been engineered on a telescopic system so, as the bricks melt
the roof will slowly lower.
So, by the end and the conclusion of the installation
there'll just be a roof on the ground with ten tonnes of wax spread around it.
The biggest challenge we had was the windows.
The glass was an absolute nightmare
and it's incredibly fragile.
What we did was we scrumpled up sugar paper
and poured it
and, when you peel it of
that’s what gives it the mottled effect
and also makes it kind of frosty.
Another highlight is Sensed Presence
by Bompas & Parr
which is in Kirkaldy’s Testing Museum.
By giving people the opportunity to touch the supernatural
by stimulating people's temporoparietal lobe
using a edge scientific development
the Koren Helmet.
So the temporoparietal lobe is the area of your brain associated with religious experiences
and paranormal experiences as well.
There are some scientists who have been able to replicate the results all the time.
There are other scientists who say it's not good science as well and it's a little bit of hocus pocus.
The thing that I like is that it absolutely skewers that science, as we see it today
is very monolithic
and yet there's still, at the cutting edge of it
lots and lots of disagreement.
Within each of us there's still an enormous mystery
the human brain and consciousness.
What I also enjoy is watching people's faces as they go past installations such as The Melting House
or they come to see the robot exhibition
which is by Peter William Holden
and it's called Dance Machines.
Having lived in the Bankside area for over 15 years
I feel really proud that Merge is growing.
The area's changed dramatically in the last 15 years
it's been completely regenerated.
Merge opens up a lot of sites that people wouldn’t
actually think to go in
even though they're just on the doorstep.
In many ways, the conceptual decisions are borne out from the area in response to the local history
or the heritage
and particularly the architectural language of the region
We've had a specific focus of Southwalk and Bankside
I've always lived here
I live two minutes away from here
and my studio's in Southwalk as well
so it's been really amazing to be able to tease apart
some of those wonderful Southwalk ghost stories.
It should be a busy time for the supernatural.