La Cura - Sound, light and pavilion by Kite & Laslett






Drawings:



17/04/12 - 22/04/12
Milan Design Week
La Cura
Exhibition in collaboration with Studio Toogood, sponsored by NIVEA
MOST, National Museum of Science & Technology, Milan

La Cura is an exhibition designed in collaboration with British designer Faye Toogood, Creative Director at Studio Toogood, a London-based design practice, known for producing interiors for the likes of Alexander Mc Queen.

Article:

Central to the choreography of La Cura, Kite & Laslett have produced an octaphonic sound and light composition that intensifies the therapeutic atmosphere of the performance and playful interaction by the audience.

Entering the exhibition, the audience pass through a threshold of sound, signalling the physical transition from the familiar realm we inhabit into an alternative temporal experience. Designed in the round, the installation draws one’s attention towards the centrepiece, illustrating the start of a ritualistic collective event.

Light and sound are both considered immaterial, void of mass. However, from a phenomenological perspective, our perception of these mediums through our senses can be considered material in character. Light, in this manner, not only reveals the space and the beauty of the clay sculptures, but reveals light itself as a material presence in space. The architectural interior is revealed through light and its spatial volume through the manipulation of sound.

The sound score consists of generated and natural sounds, radiating from the central pavilion, creating a complex and ever-evolving polyphony enveloping the audience within the space. The fusion of these sounds is symbolic of the restorative concept of La Cura; a diverse soundscape composed to the time of the performance, evokes a new beginning, portraying sonic imagery from dystopia to moments of euphoria.

The cylindrically-shaped volume of the Conte Biancamano acts as a reverberant chamber, phasing, focusing and blending the projected sounds to create a sonic cocoon. The resultant soundscape is heard primarily through reverberation and abstraction via the room’s innate acoustics. Peripherally, the undulating resin-coated drape performs both as an acoustic and visual boundary encircling and enclosing the audience. Sounds that are echoed from beyond this visual perimeter of the performance space and the enveloping drapes, bestow the sense of an external environment beyond that which is immediately seen. In essence, these reflected sounds produce the perception that the space extends outside the physical boundaries of the installation; that this ritualistic vision produced within is part of a wider context.

The parabolic reflector, raw, metallic and primal in shape, expresses a rebirth of design concepts. Its inner face, uniform and unblemished, scatters a diffuse and cleansing white light onto the surface of the pavilion. This glowing core of light peaks and fades in response to the shifting soundscape, thus, coalescing as a combined visual and auditory environment towards the pulse of a parallel time-scape. Illuminated by the parabolic reflector, the newly-born clay forms created by the audience take on a further beauty, themselves representative models of fresh beginnings.

The engagement with the architectural space via the intervention of light, sound, sculpture, performance and scent produces an overwhelming kinaesthetic experience.

www.studiotoogood.com
DEZEEN Review
Creative-Mapping Issue //02 - Interview





The Pavilion - in the making

Genius Loci - latin meaning for spirit of place(s)






As part of IN SITU
02/02/12 - 01/03/12
The Belfry
St. John on Bethnal Green
London

IN SITU features three young artists whose work relates to the architectural and the site specific. Kite & Laslett present Genius Loci, an immersive installation that seeks to capture the spirit of the Belfry through sound and light. Eleanor Wemyss presents Foundations, a series of intricate architectural drawings based on original designs of the building.
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Kite & Laslett’s Genius Loci draws on sound recordings made in the Church interiors, where improvised acoustic experiments are incorporated into a multi-layered sound piece and projected into the Belfry space. The soundscape is experienced in near-darkness, asking the viewer to contemplate the subtleties of the interaction between the sound composition, light and their relationship to the space with limited navigation.

The sounds have been de-contextualised and re-placed, causing disorientation as to their original source, context and their relationship to the Belfry. An example of this can be heard via the spatialised deconstruction and abstraction of Anton Bruckner’s Locus Iste - This Place. The installation is an experiment in kinaesthetic experience, limiting the use of some senses and emphasising the use of others, reconfiguring one’s orientation around the space.

Sound/Light Composition: Excerpt



Live performances took place at the Opening & Closing Views with a live feed from the main Church hall to the secluded space of the Belfry, connecting different spaces across the building and challenging notions of ‘liveness’ and sensory experience.

Sound composition: Sebastian Kite
Voices: Toby O’Connor, Lara Karady, May Kersey, Beatrice Milner, Damien Taylor
Live - gamba: Ibrahim Aziz
Live - baroque violin: Jennifer Bennett

IN SITU Exhibition Programme

Exhibition review by ArchitectureAs




Performance Feed - Plan:

A quadraphonic sound and light installation



28.10.11 - 04.11.11
The Basement, Hoxton Gallery
London N1

The concept of the installation is the design of an immersive sound and light installation. E N C L O S U R E consists of four suspended pyramidal volumes, arranged concentrically around the central node of the exhibition space. Each volume serves to emit sound and light towards the centre in a manner in which inner and outer spatial areas are defined and separated. Standing at the node, the participants are blinded by light, thus focusing their perception towards sound. The projected sounds pass from one volume to the next, creating a dissonant and ever evolving sound field. Standing in the path of the moving sounds a kinaesthetic sensation of sound is passed through the human body. The piece will be the only source of lighting in the space providing a dramatic ambience.

E N C L O S U R E: Programme

04.11.11
E N C L O S U R E - live performance feed

E N C L O S U R E - Double CD Release
Privately released by Kite & Laslett, on sale for £10 at IN SITU - Genius Loci and by email request.

TESTBED1, Battersea
May 2011

TESTBED1, ‘a space with no agenda’, is an experimental arena for creative artistic endeavour whereby conceptualised projects can be realised, tested and developed towards a desired article.

Commissioned by TAKTAL, Kite and Laslett’s R E L A Y is the creation of an immersive acoustic and visual environment designed specifically in response to the TESTBED space. The installation comes alive through tactile human interaction and is spatially configured in such a way to encourage the discovery of architectural space through touch, sound and light.

The colonnaded warehouse is plunged into complete darkness. The user navigates the space without visual reference but in response to amplification of their movement across the floor. Acting as a datum, a grid of points of light demarcate a concentric bed of shingle, under which are acoustically responsive plates. Treading across the shingle and between the lights triggers a central 10 KW light sculpture to illuminate and reveal one’s position in the space momentarily. The installation is responsive to the number and acoustic volume of people present in the TESTBED.

Exhibition Programme

23/08/11
R E L A Y light installation and photographic prints as part of '50 Years of London Architecture' Photography Exhibition
Amibka P3, London

www.p3exhibitions.com