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If you could go back in time and relive any party, what would it be? Maybe a teenage birthday, where you could zap in, hide the WKD Blues and erase the image of that bright indigo vomit in your washbasket?
City Nights is all about party time-travelling – but the idea is to create memories, not wipe them. A mix of theatre, performance art and night out, it’s a recreation of legendary shindigs from different eras, and this week’s chosen epoch is Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory, summer 1966.
Peckham will play the part of Manhattan as the Copeland Gallery is morphed into the den of performative ’60s hedonism filled with pop art, over-zealous eyeliner and ennui. It’s a party in the ‘immersive’ camp – a bit like a mini Secret Cinema, only nobody is going to make you sit through ‘Casino Royale’. This is 1966; Daniel Craig won’t be born for another two years.
The real Factory got its ‘Silver’ name from the layers of tin foil and broken mirrors that decorated the space – symbolic of Warhol’s interest in space and futurism. But this night won’t be relying on Bacofoil to sex up the decor. Each part of the gallery will be its own stage. You can visit ‘The Studio’ for impromptu screen tests and screenprinting, dig through love letters in The Artist’s Bedroom and drink a cocktail in aisle five of The Supermarket bar. Start belting out ‘These Days’ in your best brassy Nico voice, get in an argument with ‘Lou Reed’, then do the Loco-Motion with some hired actors. Whatever you do, don’t sit on the sidelines. It’s like Warhol said, ‘They say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.’