Current Disturbance
- Artist: Mona Hatoum
- Date: 1996
- Medium: Wood, wire mesh, light bulbs, lighting controller and sound (stereo)
- Dimensions: unconfirmed: 2790 × 5505 × 5040 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Current Disturbance” by Mona Hatoum. The piece is a large wooden grid of over two‑hundred cages, each housing a single light bulb. A controller links them all to a central junction box where another solitary bulb hangs and illuminates that point. As the bulbs flare up and fade at irregular intervals, they cast fleeting lights across the gallery floor and walls, turning the space into a breathing rhythm. Behind this visual play, a stereo sound track captures amplified electric currents, echoing the buzzing of wires scattered over the floor.
Hatoum builds on her earlier works – “Light Sentence” (1992) and “Home” (1999) – where moving lights and grids evoke domesticity and structure. In “Current Disturbance”, that structure becomes an empty shell that speaks to the human body and to rigid abstraction systems. The contrast between orderly cages and chaotic flashing bulbs heightens a sense of suspended energy and instability, inviting viewers to feel a subtle discomfort.
The installation was realised during a two‑month residency at Capp Street Project in San Francisco and entered the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift in 2023. It currently sits on display 27 in the Modern and Contemporary British Art wing of Tate Britain, ready to stir you with its pulsing light and sound.
See it in person
Current Disturbance is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
