Tonight:
4°c
Within seconds of entering, you can see nothing but the blackness, a dark hole of indeterminable scale.
Arms outstretched, you may find a fellow visitor or the velvety sensation of carpet-covered walls. As you turn, the light floods back in, and you see other adventurers in a steel structure standing 13 metres high, 10 metres wide and 30 metres long.
After slides, a crack in the floor, and a giant sun, this year's Unilever commission, the 10th annual work for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, takes you into the void.
How It Is, by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka, 51, from the outside resembles a container lorry on stilts in the middle of the Bankside gallery. Entering Tate Modern down the slope and under the bridge, visitors will see the end wall which is the back of the chamber, and can walk underneath and around to a ramp to enter it at the far end of the hall.
"Whether approaching the piece individually or negotiating it with others, it may provoke feelings of apprehension, solidarity or intrigue," a Tate spokeswoman said. Staff expect to fit about 60 people at a time into the darkness. "We have measures in place to ensure visitor safety for How It Is," the spokeswoman added.
The work's title is inspired by a novel by Samuel Beckett in which the narrator crawls through endless mud, a kind of purgatory.
Balka said: "You can shape this yourself. The shape you create is not just about your body, it's about your mind." How It Is is open from tomorrow until 5 April next year. Admission is free.
