At the back of the Serpentine Gallery, among the spring blossom, is a strange vision of elsewhere. You must stand outdoors to see it, through a pane of glass darkly. At first it looks like a drop of milk, falling in slow motion, its splash rising in a delicate corona. Then it twists and expands, and twists again, like some dancing double helix. It is only a hologram, flickering in blackness, but the poetry exceeds the technology: it looks like an ever-growing Milky Way coming into view from some unimaginable distance.
Inside the gallery is a wall pierced with peepholes at different heights, including several perfectly judged for small children. Put your eye to a hole, and beyond is the back of an immense head turned away from us in sepulchral gloom. Auburn tresses tumble down to the ground in a gleaming cascade, like the hair of some B-movie starlet on a giant silver screen. But is the head female, is it even meant to be a human being – who knows?
