Projects
The Air Loom – A Spatial-audio Codebreaking Adventure
The Air Loom – A Spatial-audio Codebreaking Adventure
An investigation into combining spatial audio with a personal escape room experience, based on the life of James Tilly Matthews.
Working with composer Ben Rowarth and designer Hannah Wolfe, Jack will explore the life of James Tilly Matthews, the first fully documented case of schizophrenia.
Matthews believed himself targeted by a group of spies operating an “Air Loom,” an instrument able to influence his thoughts from afar.
The team will explore Matthews’ delusions, using them as the basis for a spatial-audio conspiracy code-cracking challenge. This idea provides great musical stimulus and gives the team a chance to pull the listener into a contested epistemological space.
Experiment
£20,000
Aims of the Project
Binaural/spatial audio often either get used for gimmicks or to uphold the illusion of VR. It is less often considered as an artistic medium in itself, and its suitability for musical storytelling has been under-explored.
This idea provides the perfect opportunity to creatively explore the possibilities of spatial audio, because built into Matthews’ delusions was the belief in a special technology that could shape his inner experience – a very good match for the overwhelming effect of binaural sound.
With the funding I’m hoping to create a prototype experience which will consist of a spatial audio component and a physical document.
We will educate ourselves about escape room construction and narrative, explore the possibilities of using binaural or Spatial Audio as an artistic medium, and ultimately bring Matthews’ fascinating and heartbreaking story to wider attention. To inform our treatment of schizophrenia / psychosis, we will interview people with experience of schizophrenia and psychosis.
This project will provide the springboard to develop a full experience in the future.
Meet the artist
Jack Furness
Lead artist
he/him
My main creative practice is as a director. I’ve made critically-acclaimed shows at the Royal Opera, Scottish Opera, Irish National Opera, Opera North, and many others. My work is recognised for its psychological complexity, and for its raw emotional intensity. Much of my work has shared a preoccupation with extreme or altered mental states, the operation of power in society, and examining the effects of patriarchy.
I am Artistic Director of Shadwell, a music theatre company based in East London. For Shadwell I act as Producer/Director. Shadwell’s work brings opera into unconventional spaces, champions a new generation of UK composers, and removes barriers to opera across the socio-economic spectrum.
I am a writer, having written scripts for Scottish Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Royal Northern College of Music.
In 2023 I received innovation funding from MediaCymru to research how digital technologies can aid in performing arts rehearsal processes.
Ben Rowarth
Ben has been widely commissioned for vocal works, including by The Marian Consort, I Failing, Fieri Consort. His work has been performed and recorded by ensembles throughout Europe, USA and Australia, and heard on BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio.
Upcoming film premieres include: Carr-Gomm’s new film Return, opening at the London Film Week, for which Ben’s soundtrack has been nominated for the ‘Best Original Soundtrack Award’ at the WMIFF Film Festival, Washington DC; and Yours Is The Earth, a beautiful short film by director Finn Lusty.
Newly commissioned music (string quartet and vocals) for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Music and Meditation’ podcast will be released on Spotify, Apple Music and BBC Sounds on 1st June.
Hannah Wolfe
Hannah is a Cardiff-based set & costume designer who trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She has developed a significant practice working in immersive theatre & tech with the company Raucous, based at Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol.
Recently she designed the world-premiere of Rebecca Jade Hammond’s Hot Chicks at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff and Grand Ambition in Swansea.
