Buoyed is an interactive, playful cluster of magical glass buoys that hang above head height, suspended by slender wooden stems. They tease you with their pulsing glow and muffled voices, enticing you in for a closer listen. And as you reach them, they start speaking to you.
Conceived by artist and ceramicist Roop Johnstone, BellHouse is a playful, interactive sound sculpture that premiered at the EUPORIAS General Assembly in 2016.
Originally commissioned by the Met Office and Kaleider on behalf of EUPORIAS, BellHouse now revisits its roots of translating climate data for Climateurope September 2020 – January 2021. BellHouse is inviting delegates to share their data to be translated into the chimes of 34 bells, challenging how data is presented, communicated and miscommunicated. BellHouse asks:
How is your data heard? Who hears it? How do they interpret it? And what do they do next?
BellHouse translated the non-verbal communication of the delegates presenting at the EUPORIAS General Assembly into the chimes of 35 bells. A motion capture system devised by the Met Office Informatics Lab activated striking mechanisms associated with each ceramic bell generating a continuous chiming whilst each speaker presented their research.
BellHouse also played climate data sets during its residency at the Met Office such as Mt. Etna’s volcanic plumes, the European drought of 1976, solar winds, and 250 years of English and Welsh temperature and precipitation anomalies and reanalysis data based on citizen science.
You can watch a 5 minute Behind the Scenes film of the original commission here.
Roop works mostly with clay; he has made pots, sculptures, animations and installations. He is always interested in new ways to explore the material, but is not bound to it. In this case he is keen to use this opportunity to explore clay’s potential for sound, replacing other sounds (our voices) and movements with bell sounds.
Roop is one half of RAMP (Roop & Al Make Pots), makers of thrown Earthenware and Porcelain functional and studio ceramics. They exhibit their work in galleries around the UK as well as at Craft Events nationally and sell to patrons around the world. They are members of The Devon Guild of Craftsmen and the CPA (Craftsmen Potters Association). Always interested in exploring new ways to explore ideas and material RAMP has collaborated with animators, designers, scientists and technologists on various projects over the years as artists and teachers.
Roop says:
I am interested in perceptive boundaries and how we think about things. That is to say, how what we think about determines how we think and (vice versa) how our thinking processes determine what we think about. I like the idea that the way that we collect information (through our respective senses and the inherent processes involved) creates patterns of meaning and understanding that are common to all of us, but also different on an individual and cultural level. BellHouse is a sculpture which aims to play with this on some level.
The Met Office, as a kind of information and data collection/generation hub is in a unique position to explore new ways of interacting with and communicating information which will either directly affect our behaviour (in an everyday sense) or influence patterns of behaviour and understanding on a much wider scale. The communication of cutting edge research in Climate Science is a clear example of this. How can we broaden the accessibility, engagement and understanding of this important research to a wider public?
By Roop Johnstone
Produced by Kaleider
Presented by Climateurope 2020
Originally commissioned by the Met Office and Kaleider on behalf of and funded by EUPORIAS, a project of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework programme
Current team
Artist: Roop Johnstone
Creative Technologists: Katja Mordaunt (Team Lead), Kris Sum
Producer: Jocelyn S. Mills
Documentation: Preston Street Films
Graphic Design: Jo Jones
Creation and Development teams
Original creation: Roop Johnstone (Artist), Alec Jefford (Electrical Engineer), Agim Shekreli and Matthew LeBreton (Carpenters), Emily Williams (Producer)
Met Office Informatics Lab Software Development & Prototyping: Alberto Arribas (Team Lead), Rachel Prudden, Niall Robinson, Todd Burlington, Michael Priestly, Theo McCaie, Anurien Thomas, Jacob Tomlinson, Thomas Powell, Alex Hilson, Ross Middleham, Dean Jones
Creative Technologists (development): Simon Belshaw, Ian Woodbridge, Pablo Toledo
A co-production with Mercurial Wrestler
Listening Trees is the possibility of a connection with a stranger. When you sit at a Listening Tree it connects you to another seat somewhere else where someone else is sitting and you can talk and listen through the horns for as long or as briefly as you wish. When you leave the seat the connection is lost so when you sit back down you could be connected to another person on another seat, somewhere else.
In October 2015 we installed them across Torbay as part of Ageing Well Festival for their first trial.
Each Listening Tree is comprised of a handmade seat and horn which is attached to a pre-existing tree in a suitable location.
The technology is designed so that the project can be scaled by the infinite addition of new seats.
Our Dancing Shadows explores two sides of the same experience, one in VR and the other watching on. Our Dancing Shadows uses the latest VR technology to enable people to collaborate in the same virtual world at once, untethered and outside.
You can choose to watch the dancers and/or be a dancer yourself. If you choose to dance, you’ll take to the stage wearing a VR headset. You do not need to have experienced VR before in order to be a dancer, or have any experience of dance. It is not a competitive environment. If you choose to be a dancer in the VR experience you will find yourself guided through a gentle, poetic VR world.
Our Dancing Shadows is a Kaleider production, redeveloped for Arts by the Sea Festival, September 2018 in Bournemouth.
Our Dancing Shadows was first commissioned by Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio for Layered Realities Weekend at Millennium Square in Bristol, 17th-18th March 2018.
They asked artists, researchers and creatives to produce bold new works which explore the potential of 5G through a series of free experimental events, talks, and demonstrations.
Layered Realities was produced by Watershed on behalf of the Smart Internet Lab, University of Bristol. Smart Internet Lab has secured funds to establish ‘5GUK Test Networks’ a national asset, funded by the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) ‘5GUK Test Networks’.
The Layered Realities weekend, 5G showcase brought together the University of Bristol’s Smart Internet Lab and Watershed, We The Curious, BT, Nokia, Zeetta, Cambridge Communications Systems, PureLiFi and BiO.
The Stage
The Daily Telegraph
The Guardian
North West End UK
Broadway World
…and in some of the world’s most prestigious venues including Sydney Opera House, UK Houses of Parliament, Lagos City Hall, Lisbon City Hall, Melbourne’s Victoria Parliament, City of London’s Guildhall, London’s County Hall, Tianjin’s Grand Theatre and many more.
Become a Player by donating as much as you can. Work with other Players to decide what to spend the group’s money on. You have 1 hour to come to a decision. If you don’t decide unanimously in the allotted time you relinquish your privilege to spend the money and the money rolls over to the next group of Players.
If you’re the quiet observing type you can become a Silent Witness and watch as the group of Players attempt to decide how to spend the money they’ve donated. And if you want to voice your opinion you can always become a Player and buy your way in.
Spend the money on whatever you want. Be as creative as you like.
A Kaleider Production
Conceived and Directed by Seth Honnor
Collaborating Artist: Alice Tatton-Brown
Touring production Manager: Jay Kerry
Current and past performers: Nao Nagai, Laila Diallo, Irene Xochitl Urrutia, Lucy Cassidy, Seeta Patel, Gemma Paintin, Jessica MacDonald, Olivia Winteringham, Angie Bual, Kelly Marie Miller, Ria Hartley, Hanora Kamen, Alice Tatton-Brown, Frankie Snowdon, Peter Vanderford, Jonny Rowden, Emily Williams (also producer 2013 – 2016), and the late Paul Bull.
Pig is a large transparent pig. Inside it is a sign that reads: “This is a community fund. You can contribute to it if you like, and when you’ve agreed how to spend it you can open me and spend it. #ThePig”
And that is it.
Pig was conceived by Kaleider’s Artistic Director, Seth Honnor collaborating with Owen Gundry on pig’s fabrication. It has been commissioned by European partnership In-Situ, which brings together some of Europe’s most significant arts festivals and programmes.
Pig premiered at Norfolk & Norwich Festival in May 2018, before touring internationally.
Utterly fascinating reactions from passers by. More smart work from the creators of The Money and one which puts its trust in people and thinks the best not the worst of them.
Lyn Gardner, Writer for The Stage and Novelist
Pig is available for international touring. And we’d love to see it travel far and wide. If you’re interested just send us a message via our contact page and one of our Producing team will be happy to get back to you with further details.
Pigzine.comTo follow Pig all over the world log on to pigzine.com where our team of young reporters (10 – 19 year olds), led by Natasha Batorijs, will be documenting everything they can find out about Pig.
Sometimes our reporters travel with Pig, but sometimes they can’t. So you can help. Whatever your age, you can upload your own stories, images and videos to pigzine.com Our reporters would love to hear from you.
PIG, an IN SITU Pilot project, has received a creation aid by the ACT project, cofunded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The co-producers are Atelier 231 (FR), Festival di Terni (IT), Freedom Festival (UK), La Strada Graz (AT), Lieux publics (FR), Norfolk & Norwich Festival (UK), Østfold kulturutvikling (NO), Oerol Festival (NL), Theater op de Markt (BE), UZ Arts (UK).
