Audio Commissions

This commission is for a group of 3 audio exhibits – total budget £23,000 to include artist fees and all costs for creating the audio content. (The physical exhibit build and AV hardware is covered in a separate exhibit build budget)

All audio work must present a diverse range of voices on the exhibition floor, with a creative practice inclusive to all potential contributors – considerate to a balance of age, gender identity, BAME, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation.

8230 - Stories of Sand

In this exhibit, visitors explore how our human experience of sand is ingrained in our lives and consciousness and we consider the significance of sand to humankind.

CONTEXT:

• A narrative exhibit that delivers factual and fiction stories through creative spatial and sound design.

• The setting is conducive to comfortably stopping and listening to stories, in a space that playfully responds to the quirky nature of this question.

• It is not a children's storytime space, but somewhere that adults and children alike will enjoy physically being inside the stories in the space.

• The space will feature grain cushions that visitors can rest on to listen to stories through smaller ‘grain’ cushions with speakers embedded in them that they can hold to their ears.

• An interpretation panel on the wall will show who is speaking in the stories and how long is left to play on each audio piece.

What do we need for this commission?

The space has already been designed by our exhibit designers Kossmann de Jong. We are looking for an audio artist to find contributors, and collect and create audio sand world stories and sounds to be delivered in the space.

Example stories we could include from fact & fiction:

• Sand Dredging
• Construction
• Glass making
• The Sandman
• Quicksand
• Days at the Beach

We would like for these stories to be told in the first person, from real people who have a connection to and something to say about sand.

Audio stories must also include one or two stories of local significance (e.g. sand dredging, Bristol blue glass making, Bristol Refugees).

Consider use of sand field recordings, singing sand, erosion as ambient setting for constellation.

We propose 6 stories of 1 min max length each, from our experience of audience attention on the exhibition floor and how long feels comfortable for listening in a gallery space.

• Budget: £7,500 to include all fees and costs
• Work completed by Monday 16th March 2020

8451 - Time table

How do we experience time?

This exhibit provides visitors with personalised stories of our lived experience of time. Visitors reflect on how we all experience time differently, in different scenarios and at different times of life.

CONTEXT • An exhibit that shares peoples’ experiences of and in time – a time table – filled with watches that belong to different people. Press a button to light up a watch in the table and you hear that person’s story about their experience of time. Audio delivery mechanism tbc – speakers or headphones. There is space for two users to be either side of the time table at any one time.

What do we need for this commission?

The space is already designed so we are looking for an audio artist to find contributors, and collect and create their audio stories and sounds to be delivered in the space.

Possible contributors might be a theoretical physicist reflecting on their understanding of time, an older person talking about their experience of time speeding up as they age, or a kid talking about how fast the holidays went, or someone recounting an experience where time seemed to stop somehow…

We would like for these stories to be told in the first person, from real people who have a connection to and something to say about time – and hopefully who wear a watch, so we can display an old watch of theirs or an identical one in the exhibit to start the story from.

The idea is that we feel a connection to the person telling the story by starting with their watch. The exhibit accommodates two people sitting either side of a table of watches and hearing the same story together over the speakers, so it is a social experience too where we hope conversation might start between visitors hearing the same time table tale.

We propose 6 stories of 1 min max length each, from our experience of audience attention on the exhibition floor and how long feels comfortable for listening in a gallery space.

• Budget: £7,500 to include all fees and costs
• Work completed by Monday 10th August 2020

8660 - Subconscious

What can science see….in our subconscious? In the heart of the soul constellation we want to explore the idea of consciousness – and create a space that allows visitors to contemplate whether they think the soul has anything to do with consciousness.

In a large spherical space, visitors stop, sit, lie down and connect in a contemplative space with their own minds and inner monologue.

CONTEXT:

• The spatial design provides a contemplative space
• Somewhere for visitors to sit or lie down to listen
• Compelling audio design that provokes visitors to be fully present in the act of listening to the audio and having thoughts about it – to notice their own brain working and consciousness – who or what is doing the listening?

What do we need for this commission?

The space is already designed so we are looking for an audio artist to propose a concept that leads visitors through a couple of minutes of looking inward to consider their own consciousness and where the soul might arise. The audio could be playful and mess with the listeners mind a bit, talking to them directly – who is doing the listening right now, while you’re also noticing that you’re listening and asking that question? What IS consciousness…

• Budget: £8,000 to include all costs
• Work completed by Friday 15th May 2020