"Railings is an installation by the Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs. It consists of a three-channel video projection with sound displayed in a light-locked screening room. In an adjacent space the maps, photographs and sketches that informed the development of the film are displayed in a vitrine. The film documents a performance in which Alÿs walked around various Regency squares and streets in London and trailed a wooden drumstick along the railings in front of the houses. The camera follows Alÿs from behind, occasionally cutting to a wide-angle shot to capture the broader landscape in which Alÿs’s action took place. During its development Railings had the working title Drumming, as Alÿs sought to create an action that would uncover the rhythmic possibilities of the city. In preparation for the performance Alÿs took drumming lessons, transforming a musical activity into a means of urban exploration. As curator Mark Godfrey has observed of the film: ‘Alÿs walks around London’s Georgian squares clack-clacking a stick along their iron railings and at one point setting off a car alarm, thus turning the armour of paranoid London into a found musical instrument’ (Godfrey 2006, p.262). In creating this found instrument from the city’s architecture, Alÿs’s action recalls the performances that characterised the Fluxus movement, particularly those of the composer John Cage." - Tate, "Francis Alÿs. Railings"

Sitography: MCBA, "Francis Alÿs. Railings, 2004", www.mcba.ch/
www.mcba.ch/en/collection/railings/

TATE, "Francis Alÿs. Railings", www.tate.org.uk
www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/alys-railings-t12194