With ushers dressed as beekeepers, tens of thousands of the ‘principle players’ being absent and a rustic soundscape welcoming visitors to the venue, Be Play One was an unorthodox and ambitious event. Premiered at the Nottingham Arts Centre, it used TiMax SoundHub dynamic spatialisation, a 15.2 KV2 surround system and layered projection screens there was promise of quite the memorable multi-sensory experience.
The Wolfgang Buttress-inspired sound and music-scape was created for the UK Milan Expo 2015 pavilion, as part of his massive beehive and meadow installation – which sought to highlight the significance and plight of bees in our food chain and ecology. The show played for two nights to sold-out audiences and received rapturous reviews from the likes of the Guardian and BBC 6 Music.
Following his involvement in Milan alongside Mike Bedford of Hoare Lee, Out Board director Robin Whittaker designed and programmed Nottingam’s multichannel surround system for the 12-piece live band reinforcement and immersive soundscape playback and live streams. The KV2 speaker system choice was driven by positive results in other sound reinforcement projects including some high level TiMax theatre engagements: ‘The EX10s and EX12s delivered exactly what was needed and effortlessly handled the program content without losing clarity or definition,’ Whittaker says. ‘Its great to do what TiMax does best with a system that helps make it work so well’.
The music was composed by core members of Spiritualised and various collaborators assembled by installation artist Buttress, including acoustic and electronic musicians plus his own daughter on vocals. The absent but central performers were 30-40,000 bees who’s scuffling, tooting and waggling noises were live streamed from beehives run by Nottingham Trent University’s Dr Martin Bencsik who is a leading research specialist in the field and a central contributor to the Milan project. The bees’ constant activity was visually projected onto the translucent scrims in front of the band while the remote audio feeds of their complex hive chatter were immersively wrapped and floated around the audience by TiMax along with some of the music elements. As well as playback and all dynamic 3D spatialisation, TiMax2 SoundHub handled eq, delay and zone level trim for the multi channel system. A separate TiMax unit was in place for the walk-in soundscape.
Be Play One is now scheduled for a performance at London’s Kew Gardens, when the entire original Milan Expo pavilion will also be installed for an extended period as a visitor attraction.
See also:
Case Study: The Journey (2015 Milan World Expo installation)
More: www.outboard.co.uk
