PLAY.Orchestra, sit and play - updated

PLAY.Orchestra

If you go down to the South Bank in London this summer, outside the Royal Festival Hall is a wonderful installation titled PLAY.Orchestra.

56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots are laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker. Sit down on the cube or stand in the hotspot to turn on that instrument and bring 58 friends to hear the full piece. People with Bluetooth phones will be able to receive a ringtone of the piece created, as well as upload their own sound samples in September. Read how it works.

The production blog gives an interesting insight into the installing process & the complexity of the project.

PLAY.orchestra is the result of a collaboration between Milk and Tales, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments, South Bank Centre Education and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Daniel Harris at Central Saint Martins was involved in the project from the beginning, details from his site:

“I went on to configure the various human, computer and physical interfaces used in the build. 2 miles of cable were labelled and loomed to connect the 56 seats and 3 wheelchair accessible hotspots with the control system. The system ran on a midi based Max MSP system designed by Iamthemightyjungulator.

The Objective was to get non-traditional audiences to experience an orchestra from new perspectives, and to participate in the composition process. For this purpose, a bluetooth system was set up, where members of the public could submit their own audio samples for use in the final weeks of the commission.”

[update]

Milk and Tales have now released a video and detailed making of photos.

(thanks for the tip Leslie, via BBC News)

PLAY Orchestra

Posted on January 31st 2007 under Installations, Instruments, Sound, Urban Space