Thenix Sound Foundation

The important bit is “sound foundation”: both Nicks agree that in TV, Film and live theatre the contribution of music and sound is routinely considered far too late in the creative process. We want to discover what happens when you put sound first instead: where the foundation of the piece is its sound. Not actors, or dialogue, or light, or design: just sound.
How much narrative can be delivered by precise, engaging, totally immersive audio?

Via Kent University’s Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries (based at Chatham Historic Dockyard, Medway) we were able to approach d&b audiotechnik, and were invited to experience their Soundscape immersive audio first hand at their ITEK demonstration centre at the Science Museum. Discussions with Kent iCCi also threw up the idea that capturing spatial audio didn’t have to be expensive or demand technical know-how: we were introduced to the Zoom H3-VR, a hand-held ambisonic recorder with a price tag under £200! We bought one, and were immediately amazed by its ease of use and by the crisp, detailed ambisonic recordings it captured.

Inspired by the possibilities of this budget recorder, we realised we could broaden our experimentation: what if we put this technology into the hands of young people in Medway, and asked them to join us in discovering and creating sounds?

With the help and backing of Medway-based CPP “Ideas Test” we held a series of workshops at The Chatham Historic Dockyard in August 2025. 10 young people from Medway collaborated with us, using Zoom recorders to explore the audio possibilities of the local environment through ambisonic recordings: these included everything from “ambient” field recordings inspired by JG Ballard’s work (noisy traffic, the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, a resonant underpass) to moments of improvised “foley” style recordings using gravel and discarded ring-pulls.

We examined and listened back to our recordings in an improvised spatial sound studio in the Dockyard’s Galvanising Shop, and the young people edited them together to create a narrative piece that we played back in 360 degree sound.

Although we first approached Elizabeth as a JG Ballard fan, we went on to discover that she has strong family ties to both Chatham and to the Historic Dockyard: as Kent iCCi prepares to launch its ambitious Docking Station tech hub in the dockyard’s old police station, Elizabeth will join ourselves and the young people of Medway to make something extraordinary and breathe new creative life into a place that was for centuries the famous home of technical innovation, imagination and ambition.