A physically distanced audio installation in a garden setting will be the first event of a redesigned Findhorn Bay Festival this year.
This debut installation will be an outdoor audio experience which by its very nature supports physical distancing and the festival’s trademark of delivering cultural experiences in ‘unexpected spaces and scenic locations’.
After Cryptic’s successful installation Breaking Reverie, which was part of the last festival in 2018, Findhorn Bay Arts is working in partnership again with the Glasgow-based company to present Sound Horn by Katie Anderson, an emerging public artist based in Dumfries and Galloway.
Promising a calming, creative exploration of the natural environment, Sound Horn is a cluster of six upturned, person-sized gramophone speakers created in copper and aluminium sheet metal that will be placed in the Shrubbery at Brodie Castle.
Magical soundscapes
Each speaker emits one part of a field-recorded composition that Anderson made during a Cryptic residency at the international artists’ residency centre, Cove Park. From choral notes, spoken word parts and a bass-line hum, visitors can listen to each element in isolation before the elements combine into one deeply resonant whole sounding from all six speakers at once. A poignant musical promenade through a series of magical soundscapes, this 12-minute sound loop has been described by one audience member as “calming, beautiful, made me want to stay for ages in the garden and just listen.”
The sound installation was first shown at Cryptic’s Sonica in 2019. Sound Horn will run from Wednesday 19 August until Sunday 23 August, between 10am and 4pm. The Shrubbery is located between the Castle and Playful Garden and is open to visitors and easily accessed from the car park. There is free access into the Shrubbery at all times.
Findhorn Bay Arts is working with the National Trust for Scotland to ensure that the Scottish Government’s latest guidelines relating to Covid-19 are followed. They are taking all necessary precautions to keep visitors safe whilst viewing the installation in the castle grounds. There will be signage throughout reminding people to keep to safe-distancing rules and a team member from Findhorn Bay Arts will welcome visitors and will be on site throughout the whole time to support visitors.
Festival programme reimagined
Sound Horn is the first of a series of events that will form this year’s Findhorn Bay Festival. Over the next few months Festival Director Kresanna Aigner will organise various events, all set in unexpected spaces and scenic locations, instead of a run of events over a six-day period in September.
Kresanna Aigner said: “While we can not produce the Fourth Findhorn Bay Festival as we had envisaged, Findhorn Bay Arts can support our local and the wider communities to come back out, re-connect with people and make creative things happen in Moray.
“Over the course of the next twelve months, we will role out a creative programme in collaboration with our regional and national partners”.
“We will kickstart our series of events with our long-standing partner Brodie Castle and the National Trust for Scotland. Sound Horn is an ideal public art installation which can be safely experienced during these unprecedented times as it can be seen, heard and experienced and enjoyed in nature and without touching.”
James Dean, Operations Manager, Brodie Castle said: “We are pleased to be able to showcase this exciting and creative public art installation in the Shrubbery here at Brodie Castle. It will give our visitors a new and additional element to help enhance their visit to the grounds, in an outdoor space that is a natural and safe environment, and freely accessible. We are sure our visitors will love this new experience during their visit to Brodie!”
LISTINGS:SOUND HORNBrodie Castle (Victorian Shrubbery), Brodie, Forres IV36 2TEWednesday 19 – Sunday 23 August10am – 4pm (daily)