The cellist and the video artist present “Unreal Estate – Live” (winner of the Dazed x Converse Emerging Artists Award). Plus “Music for Losers” for solo cello by Andrew Hamilton.

“Helicopters swoop on the penthouse helipad of a vast neoclassical complex. In the grounds, Anish Kapoor sculptures glint with dancing shards of light from a swimming pool lit by neon LEDs… The Royal Academy’s high-vaulted ceilings, ornate plasterwork and Corinthian columns standing sentry over wide, empty porticos are a shared architecture of the super-rich. It is this reality Lawrence Lek would have us enter as he keenly observes the vulnerable position these attractive features place the institution in, its design and prestigious art-world credentials exploited as sales tactics. The RA itself is on a rental contract, and set against the backdrop of London’s current housing crisis, Lek leverages this crack in the façade of dominance and timelessness associated with the nation’s most revered art establishment.”–Susanna Davies-Crook

“Unreal Estate” uses video-game software to imagine a future in which the Royal Academy of Arts has been sold off as a privately owned luxury estate. Join us for a tour of this dystopian world led by the artist Lawrence Lek, with a live soundtrack by Oliver Coates and voiceover of a found text from Russian “Tatler” magazine, translated into Mandarin by Joni Zhu. Tonight is the launch of Coates’ soundtrack for “Unreal Estate”, released digitally on Slip. Coates will also perform the UK premiere of “Music for Losers” by Andrew Hamilton.