Based in Central London and opening in 2021, Outernet Arts is an ambitious new project which will present pioneering time-based art on the world’s largest high resolution wrap-around screens. The project is the first of a series of international arts venues and will include live music spaces, restaurants and office spaces.
In October 2020, acclaimed artist 
Marco Brambillawas announced as Art Director of a display programme for the screens around Outernet’s Now Building, which will illuminate in early 2021 in the Denmark Street area near Tottenham Court Road. Over 2000 square metres of 8K resolution screens will wrap around a new 2000 capacity live events space.
The programme will feature works by Marina Abramović, Sarah Morris, Damien Jalet and Berndnaut Smilde.
Abramović’s work at Outernet was originally planned to coincide with her show at the Royal Academy; both have now been postponed to 2021. The performance artist plans to present an exclusive new version of her celebrated work Seven Deaths of Maria Callas - where she re-enacts opera deaths - on Outernet’s screens. “The Outernet Arts program and curator Marco Brambilla are giving me a great opportunity to use the largest screens in the world to exhibit. I am very excited about this collaboration and the chance to present to the wider public my work The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas in such a unique way." - Marina Abramović.
Brambilla will also premiere new work at Outernet. Object to be Destroyed (enlarged) 2020 is a large scale installation inspired by Man Ray’s Object To Be Destroyed. Like Man Ray’s readymade, Brambilla’s work features a five-storeys-high metronome with an eye attached. The metronome slowly keeps time, while the eye moves gradually up and down the metronome arm throughout each hour. Brambilla will also present Pelléas et Mélisande (pictured top), as part of the Outernet programme. The work was designed as a series of visual intermezzos for Debussy’s opera of the same name, and offers insights into the subconscious of the opera’s protagonists through surrealist video compositions played on LED screens. As with much of Brambilla’s work, this piece incorporates celestial imagery and is concerned with the psychological and metaphysical lives of the characters.
“The Outernet Arts programme has, at its core, a desire to create an intimacy between the viewer and the artist while presenting work on an unprecedented scale using state-of-the-art technology. Our programme is about accessibility and inclusiveness and I think the life-like aspect of the video screens will connect with our collective imagination in a very powerful way. Whilst in the space you will not feel you are viewing a screen but looking deep into a portal and another reality.” - Marco Brambilla
