We Wink, We Wink, our Voices Blink
Creates magical voice-light-touch environments for people in public space.
WHAT IS IT?
Beautiful, touchable, singing orbs light up the dusk inside steel lantern stands. Their colours change and pulse, making a chorus of light and sound. As you approach, the colours change according to the voices inside; and so does the brightness of the orbs. The orbs are filled with sounds made by children, sounds that imitate their ideas of forest animals and plants in the wind. You can touch them, and they interact with your movement. And when you touch them, they vibrate with the voices inside. We have produced up to 12 orbs in one go.
We can fill them with other voices, too - voices from your community. The orbs each contain a mini-computer with up to 30 hours of randomly played back sound samples inside them, and are movement-responsive. People have conversations with them!
WHO IS IT FOr?
Public audiences in outdoor spaces: light festivals, civic festivals, performance festivals. Weatherproofed to -5C and battery-driven; touchable; durable.
Why does it matter?
How might we bring an experience of expanded, inter-sensory vocal activities to wide publics in entrancing ways? Here is one solution. The beauty of vocal difference is celebrated in public space, gently and yet intriguingly.
Funders
The concept was developed during R+D project ‘Hands on Your Vibrating Voice’, funding by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts. The finished product was commissioned by Light Up Lancaster and We are the Fair, for the Festival of Light, Southampton. The project has reached very large numbers so far, attracting audience closer through the intriguing light patterns, who then hear and touch.
