Enlighten – new sound and light festival in Bury this October

A new sound and light festival will bring a stellar programme of world premieres, award-winning artworks and international musicians to Bury.

Arts producers Curated Place have partnered with Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre to develop Enlighten Bury, reinventing the experience of the town’s previous Light Night into a high quality public art installation trail alongside an international music programme.

An array of interactive light and sound installations will bring the streets, venues, galleries and bars of Bury’s cultural quarter to life, while stars of the experimental world music will play into the night.

Curated Place is one of the UK’s leading arts and festival producers. They recently won 2016 Scottish Festival of the Year for the SPECTRA festival in Aberdeen, and this year delivered the critically acclaimed “John Grant’s North Atlantic Flux” for Hull 2017 UK City of Culture.

Some of the attractions:

• Felix’s Machines - Compositional Automata is a new dual functional machine created by Felix to be programmed by new composers and shown at festivals and exhibitions as a standalone light and sound sculpture.
• Seminal electronica group Plaid will perform original new scores with Felix, building an ambient mixture of sound, light and machinery that will dazzle and excite.
• Digital artist Seb Lee-Delisle’s “The Lightning Catchers” is a large scale laser-projected interactive game for 2 to 10 players where the aim of the game is to catch as much lightning as you can with lightning rods.

• Poco Apollo is a generative music piece by Icelandic musician/programmer Halldór Eldjárn. Built upon NASA’s Apollo Space mission photo archive: around 15,000 photos taken on earth and in space, Poco Apollo generates musical soundscapes for each image in the library. This event will be a live performance as guitarist Daníel Helgason joins Halldór onstage to interpret the songs along with self-playing robotic harp. After the performance, Poco Apollo will take over and play back random songs ad infinitum.
• Paul Friedlander’sLight Harp is a collection of heavy black cords stretched taught horizontally across a frame and set in vibra­tion. Since the amplitude of the waves is large, the audience sees not a string but a translucent volume swept out in space by the vibrating movement. These strings are lit with chromastrobic light, a special form of light that chang­es colour faster than the eye can see.

• Owl Project is a collaborative group of artists consisting of Simon Blackmore, Antony Hall and Steve Symons. They work with wood and electronics to fuse sculpture and sound art, creating music making machines, interfaces and objects which intermix pre-steam and digital technologies. Drawing on influences such as 70s synthesiser culture, DIY woodworking and current digital crafts, the resulting artwork is a quirky and intriguing critique of the allure and production of technology.

Most of the events are free, although there is a charge for some of the music concerts.

For all the details, go to www.enlightenbury.co.uk

ENDS

Issued: 5 September 2017.

For further media information and images please contact

Catharine Braithwaite on +44 (0)7947 644110 or cat@we-r-lethal.com

Notes to editors:

Locations of Light & Sound Installations

Seb Lee-Delisle - The Lightning Catchers / Outside of Bury Parish Church

Paul Friedlander - Light Harp / Bury Transport Museum

Felix Thorn & PLAID - Compositional Automata / Bury Art Museum

Jenny Dockett - Platonic Solids / Bury Archives

One Five West - Plug In Playground / Silver Street

Yiannis Kranidiotis - Touch / Bury Art Museum

Impossible - Light Weight / Market Square

Eyvind Gulbrandsen & The Sunday Boys - Surrounded by Strangers / Bury Art Museum

Eyvind Gulbrandsen & SHOAL - Water & Air / The Met

Lee Patterson - Plateau / The Met

Hannah Ayre & Amanda Yate - Parabolas / Key Gardens

The Owl Project - Opti Kit 2.0 / Bury Sculpture Centre

Halldor Eldjarn - Poco Apollo / Bury Art Museum

Sola - Intergenerational Voices / Gallipoli Gardens

Sid Fossil - Atmospheric Environments / Bury Art Museum

NOISE Orchestra - Colour Drones / Bury Archives Exhibition Space

Collective Collaborations - Nomad / Bury Transport Museum

STANZA - The Reader / Bury Art Museum

Yan Tan Tethera - The Light Fantastic / Library Gardens

Music Programme:

Bury Parish Church - 20 October: Wrangler / Tonik Ensemble / ORKA; - 21 October: Plaid/ Sykur / Wyles & Simpson

Bury Transport Museum - 20 October: Hannah Peel / Science of the Lamps / Emilio Pinchi; - 21 October: Mt Wolf / Cobby & Litten / Nanye

Bloom (DJ sets) - 20 October: X-Ray Katt / James Orvis; - 21 October: Steve Cobby / Mixnots

The Met - 20 October: Lee Patterson / Fiona Soe Paing / Eyvind Gulbrandsen & SHOAL

on www.enlightenbury.co.uk

Curated Place is an arts-led creative production company specialising in international public programmes, large scale public installations, original commissions, artist development, music strategy, event and sustainable production delivery. They focus on the delivering work outside of traditional spaces. They have successfully delivered projects across the UK, Europe and the Nordic Region, working with municipal, commercial and governmental agencies alongside the communities where the work happens.

Visit https://www.curatedplace.com/

Supported by the Culture Fund of the EU, Arts Council England, Bury Council, Havas Lynx, Nordic Council of Ministers