Paso

Paso is a memorial to an extinct migration route, a prehistoric chalk land-bridge that previously connected the UK to Europe and about the animals that used it. By referencing this ancient connection to Europe, Paso investigates the contemporary concerns of Brexit, climate change and human migration.

Paso features a new type of spatial sound system developed with Antoine Hacheme where sounds are staged in a virtual model of a real space and become audible to a person in the real space through headphones that track their realtime position. These sounds exist in dialogue with tactile stimuli that construct an environment for the participant’s body to interact with.

We want to challenge the static role of a listener in a sound experience. Instead of sound coming to them, here they must move their body through a specially-designed environment to encounter a composition of sound and touch distributed throughout it. In doing so, the participant’s body becomes an active controller/conductor in the experience, deciding the speed and direction in which the composition is manifest.

We are working with artist Maria Oshodi to design an experience that is equal in quality for sighted and blind/visually-impaired alike.

Paso is also an AR app to be experienced by users on their smart phones, taking the digital components of the installation and allowing audience to experience them in a virtual space.

Paso will be presented at Fabrica Gallery in Brighton in January 2021.

Paso is supported by Lighthouse in Brighton through Creative Europe’s Re-Imagine Europe programme, as well as a grant from Arts Council England.

Collaboration with William Fairbrother.

Video and Images from an early 2019 R&D.