Voyages is two visitor experiences for Battersea Arts Centre, made in collaboration with Collusion. The work is an evolution of my sound-to-light experiments, as first seen in Arcadia. These two curious audio experiences encourage visitors to explore Battersea Arts Centre and seek out hidden stories, written by LH Trevail, scattered around within the building.
Time Quest
A free family experience permanently installed within the building. This non-linear, interactive experience will take families on a 30-45min. adventure around the building, discovering ghosts of the future hidden within the lights. Time Quest incorporates Battersea Art Centre’s existing installations with stories relating the to core values celebrated in the artworks: Courage, Inclusivity, Determination, Collaboration, Integrity, Honesty. The narrative explores possible futures for Battersea Arts Centre, creating a playful and hopeful commentary on the climate crisis, human interactions and the future of performing arts.
Time Quest can be replayed multiple times. There are 18 stories hidden within the building, three will be heard on each visit but there are 540 unique combinations of the experience.
Step into Battersea Art Centre and experience a time-bending, mind-wobbling journey! Hidden lights have become portals to infinite possible futures, and it’s up to you to uncover their secrets. Equipped with your amazing Electro Acoustic Receiver (E.A.R.) devices, you will embark on a curious adventure to explore, listen, and discover what the future holds. Time Quest is a fun and interactive experience for all the family, that will guide you around Battersea Arts Centre’s beautiful corridors, with plenty of surprises along the way.
Time Quest is available to book, for free, for groups of up to 4 people.
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Spectral: In The Flesh
The second, much scarier, experience is aimed at adults, who will explore the building after dark, using the same listening devices to find lamps positioned around the otherwise empty building. Historical lighting found in the Battersea Arts Centre archive has been reconditioned and brought back into use for this project.
Are you afraid of the dark? Join the hosts of the UK’s premier ghost-hunting show, uncovering parts of the story as you make your way through a near-empty Battersea Arts Centre at night. Inspired by accounts from real people, Spectral: in the Flesh is a guided experience that will let you journey through BAC’s hidden spaces, looking for dimly lit lamps which will reveal fragments of a ghost story.
Both Voyages use an innovative Electro Acoustic Receiver (E.A.R), created by Dave Cranmer for this project, to listen to frequencies within the adapted lights in the building. The E.A.R is built upon my Photon Smasher technology, a microphone which uses a solar cell to convert light into sound. The microphone allows you to hear the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) of LED light sources, where the frequency of the LEDs PWM becomes the frequency of sound. My early experiments were listening to existing lights and illumination infrastructure, but more recently I began to experiment with controlling the lights themselves, by modulating the power to the lights with audio. This technique allows the broadcast of sound via light, and underpins the Voyages experiences at Battersea.
Project
Voyages
Venue
Battersea Arts Centre, South London
Type
Audio Visual Installation
Producers
Rachel Drury, Rich Hall, Producers
Frazer Merrick, Creative Producer
Jo Clarke, Project Manager
Creative Team
Frazer Merrick, Lead Artist
LH Trevail, Writer
Dave Cranmer, Creative Technologist
Slade Design, Graphic Design
Samuels Electrical, Electrician
Pedro Mello, Technician
Voice Actors // Time Quest
Mercedes Browne – E.A.R. Instructions
Toyin Ayedun-Alase – Pilot
Edalia Day – Dreamer, BAC Staff
Giles Stoakley – Serving Staff 1, Surveyor 2, Serving Staff 2
Cathy Coneff – Surveyor, Kind Soul
Michelle Kelly – Comfortable Friend, New Hire, Musician 1
Birte Widman – Young’un 2, Ghost Hunter, Musician 2
Maddison Nixon – Young’un 1, Ghost Hunter 1, Birthday Celebrator
John Rayment – Performer waiting for show to start, Alien 1
Callum Hale – Queuer 2, Entomologist, Tour Guide, Cleanup Crew 2
Anna Tolputt – Alien 2, Stage Manager, Queuer 1, Friend, Cleanup Crew 1, Suspicious Interdimensional Being
Voice Actors // Spectral: in the flesh
Anna Tolputt – EAR Instructions
Giles Stoakley – Presenter
Becky Wright – Sound Technician