I've been kicking out the cultural jams this weekend! First up was the James Turrell exhibition at a funky modern gallery which turned out to be on the edge of Shepherds Bush. The gallery had "modern art space" all over it: the walls were very white, the staff clothing very black and they had an official champagne sponsor. Why don't I have one of them?

James Turrell makes art with light and my lighting designer friend Peter had mentioned his name to me years ago so I was keen to see the exhibition. Some of his work are projections on the wall, some use a sort of TV screen and then he also does something he calls "space division". They had one of these, called Fastnet, on display in the exhibition and it was really incredible. You walk into a very dark room and on the wall at the far end is a large blue rectangle: it could be a giant Yves Klein painting. Luckily we had the room to ourselves for a while because I think it wouldn't have the same impact if you had to stare at it with loads of other folks milling around.

As you look the colour seems to become more vivid and I slowly walked towards it so that by the end I was standing right in front. The big blue surface took up the whole of my field of vision. There was no shadow on it so it was clearly not a projection and the way everything appeared seemed designed to make my brain think it was painted on the wall. So it was with a real sense of uncertainty that I raised my hand and tried to touch it. Reaching through what should have been the wall was an incredible sensation because what looked like the wall or the painting was in fact a void filled with light. But even right in front of it there was no way of telling the dimensions of the space before me. It was such an engaging, fascinating experience it reminded me of the one thing I thought worth seeing at the Saatchi gallery - Richard Wilson's 20:50. Good stuff.

But the highbrow entertainment wasn't over for the day. Next stop was an old abandoned warehouse (or something) in Wapping to see a site-specific, promenade performance of Faust! We turned up at the appointed time, loitered for a bit and then were ushered inside and down to the waiting area. This turned out to be a kind of 50s style, wooden shack cum blues bar. There was even a geezer playing proper old timey music on a guitar and singing into a can.

According to the blurb the idea was that we would be taken in in small groups and we could explore as we liked. We were all given masks as we entered and so anyone you saw without a mask was a member of the cast and you could follow them and see what happened. Up we went in the lift and 3 of us were turfed out into a long dark corridor. Everything was black with the only light coming from an avenue of candles interspersed with religious statues with moody atmospheric music coming from somewhere. So far so student drama festival. Things got more interesting when nosing around the rooms coming of the corridor. One was full of papers, specimens and scientific equipment, doubtless the good doctor's study; another was decked out as a cinema in which Orson Welles's "A touch of evil" was playing, doubtless, umm, a profound artistic statement of, umm, some sort.

Anyway things definitely got a lot more interesting once I found a member of the cast. She led us upstairs and down and through a room decked out as an eerie corn field and into a bar straight out of a Hopper painting. Various other members of the cast seemed to be there and various scenes ensued. It was mostly mute, physical theatre with some thrilling near-acrobatics at times - it reminded me of free running almost. It wasn't till afterwards I realised on reading the blurb again that this seemed to be half way through the story so I was a bit miffed. I know it's all modern and promenade and all that and I'm sure subverting traditional bourgeois notions of narrative structure is quite what we should all be doing but I've paid for a ticket and I don't think it's big or clever to do some of the show without me watching. Where's me soapbox...

The bits I did catch were excellent. We were lead out of the bar, through a forest of pine trees and into the Valpurgis night dance - cue a big dance number with energetic lindyhopping (that I really liked!). Back through the forest, past some crazed revivalist preacher and into another bar where, the notes tell me, Mephistopheles's triumph came about... Clearly I didn't have much clue what was going on but the spectacle was everything and it was gripping stuff with this urgent, imperative music booming along in the background. We made it down to hell in the end where things didn't go well for our hero. This featured some cool stuff with people swinging around on ropes hung from the roof. As Faust disappeared into the darkness we
appeared back in the bar for more old timey music. It was quite an experience and I'd definitely recommend it.

Not as much as I'd recommend Hot Fuzz which I saw tonight. I heart Simon Pegg. Please can I be him. Please...