Lights shining from the dark side with Mona Hatoum

At this time of year, lights generally herald a spirit of goodwill and joy, but in Mona Hatoum’s installation at the Whitechapel, shown in London for the first time since it was made in 1996, they create an atmosphere of menace.

Individually fenced inside wooden cages, around 200 light bulbs pulse irregularly, occasionally reaching dazzling crescendos of brightness or fading to black. Accompanying them is the amplified sound of the bulbs’ current: a low, phasing bass note whose timbre changes with the lights, periodically reaching an almost sickening intensity. Discomfort is precisely Hatoum’s intention. Over the past three decades her work has investigated political and human rights issues, often concerning her background as a Beirut-born Palestinian, as well as reflecting on the dark underbelly of domestic life.

Current Disturbance clearly touches on both themes: the flickering lightbulb is a common symbol of the torture chamber or prison, while Hatoum’s wooden structure evokes a tower block, hinting at a domestic form of incarceration. Tension rules — as the electrical buzz intensifies, it seems perennially set to explode.

With time, the installation prompts more than grim associations. I read metaphors for communication in the way the bulbs’ filaments recall script, and in cables interweaving in the middle of the cage structure. Each bulb glows independently, suggesting the individual lives lived within homogenous architecture.

So beyond the sense of threat underscoring the work, there are hints of warmth, as well as a mesmerising and particularly urban kind of visual thrill.

Until March 6 (020 7522 7888, whitechapelgallery.org)

Current Disturbance/Mona Hatoum
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX