This show is at Glastonbury Festival every year. I saw it most recently this summer (2019). The show was part circus show part dance party with a huge spider-like construction that the audience gather under and round. The construction has the DJ in the middle, lights all over its legs and trapeze artists and dancers hanging from it and climbing on it. It towers over the audience which was anywhere up to 5000. The music was loud and the audience danced and watched the show.
Key to the audiences’ experience was the size of the construction, the loudness and epic nature of the music and the the overall scale. We were dwarfed and overwhelmed and made to feel like a colony of ants worshiping at the feet of the giant spider! The performers were not the main focus but just another layer to add to the whole and to reinforce the scale of the spider. They were well lit and lots of pyros and smoke added to the drama. We were made to feel small but included and left feeling like we had been through something significant together.
Sorry this is so long but it is important in the history of art in public space. The Mutoids are what turned me on to art in the street, in the warehouse, with a beat, with a passion. Creating your own agenda working in the cracks in between what is there and what is expected. The motivation was to have a party while the ship went down. They laughed at everyone especially themselves. They made something out of nothing especially junk, derelict spaces and kids thrown away by society. Driven by pure Rock n Roll and diesel fumes the Mutiods were my first artistic love affair
