Braunarts created the 3D sound design, documentary film and elephant poster image for Extant's first outdoor theatrical performance 'Obscurity', which was commissioned by Greenwich + Docklands International Festival. Obscurity was conceived, written and directed by Maria Oshodi, Artistic Director
of Extant
Obscurity was a 30-minute dramatic tour located at Trafalgar Square in London, as part of the Mayor of
London's Liberty Festival and featured a 16-speaker spatialised sound design, blending an exciting mix of live performance, music, visual art and experimental description to tell a story of fragments and the whole.
The video above shows a 3D model that we created to help design the relationship between the 3D sound and the performance area within the confines of all of the activities taking place in Trafalgar Square during the Liberty Festival 2009. It locates the placement of 16 speakers for surround sound playback with the sitar player seated in the centre. The actors and audience promenaded around this central point throughout the duration of the narrative.
The captioned and described video below has excerpts from the performance, providing further details of the show including audience responses.
Sound Design by Braunarts
Braunarts is a BAFTA award-winning digital arts and media production company that explores art, science and culture in innovative
ways. Braunarts also work as creative consultants for clients in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. Terry Braun’s digital
art and multimedia experience includes a wide spectrum of installations for museums and galleries and large-scale video projections
and audio installations for dance and music performances in theatres and public spaces.
www.braunarts.com
Visual art work by Sally Booth
Sally Booth is a visual artist specialising in drawing and painting. She completed a BA and MA in Fine Art at Bristol and Wimbledon Schools of Art. She has exhibited her work at South Bank Centre, Whitechapel Art Gallery and Sadlers Wells, and is much influenced by her recent touring exhibition to Japan. Awarded the Adam Reynolds Memorial Bursary 2009, Sally enjoyed a residency this year at The Bluecoat and advice from Tate Liverpool.
www.sallybooth.co.uk
Music by Baluji Shrivastav
Baluji is an internationally renowned musician and composer. He plays the sitar, surbahar, dilruba, pakhavaj and tabla, and is a master multi-instrumentalist of Hindustani classical music. Baluji has worked with some of the greatest tabla accompanists, including Anindo Chatterji and Ustad Fayaz Kahn, and composed and played for Indian classical and contemporary dancers, in particular Akram Khan. Baluji has also worked with western artists like Massive Attack, Future Sound of London, Andy Sheppard and Guy Barker.
www.baluji.com
Additional music by Takashi Kikuchi
Takashi Kikuchi trained at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he achieved the Lawson Award. Since 2007 he has given recitals for the Treasury Music Society in Whitehall, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Handel House Museum. Distinguished composer, Frank Stiles, recently dedicated his sonata for viola and piano to Takashi.
search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20050514vk.html
Greenwich+Docklands International Festival
"Ambitious and free" The Sunday Times
Greenwich+Docklands International Festival returns with a water-themed programme for 2009. The story of Greenwich and Docklands has been shaped and define by water and, using this inspiration, the Festival will commission and present a range of extraordinary UK and international artists to provide a visionary water-based interpretation of the area. Highlights will include a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Baroque composer Handel with an outdoor son et lumière inspired by the Thames entitled Water Music, as well as the UK premiere of French company Ilotopie’s Fous de Bassin, a poetic spectacle in which the performers will literally walk on water.
www.festival.org
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