Future Soundings // Projects

Future Soundings is a combined workshop and performance that uses immersive sound and speculative fictions to create future scenarios generated by participants in-situ.

The workshop begins with participants being invited to take a short walk in their immediate environment while engaging with an app on their mobile device. The app offers prompts for the participant to imagine travelling through time as they walk. It then asks them to describe what they see, hear and feel in the places they pass. The content created by participants is stored in a database that the workshop hosts/performers can access. When the participants arrive back at the workshop venue their collective content is performed back to them as a singular story with an improvised immersive soundscape and music score.

FUTURE RIVER SOUNDINGS

Uninvited Guests and Duncan Speakman are currently using Future Soundings to engage communities on the Bristol Avon, responding to the Climate and Environment challenge articulated by our partner Defra: "How could the way we engage people in decision-making - the very act of creating new futures - about the freshwater system be radically different?"

Future River Soundings is an approach to policymaking explored through participatory immersive experiences.

Future Soundings was successfully trialled at Defra Futures, CaBA, and Policy Lab's national forum, Changing Course, with feedback proposing the next step as 'further experimentation'.

PAST PERFORMANCES OF FUTURE SOUNDINGS

Last year Future Soundings was performed as part of Hopeful Futures, a two-day event exploring the future of creative technology in Bath and Bristol, run by Bristol + Bath Creative R&D.

You can watch videos of the performances in BRISTOL and BATH.

OR if you prefer you can just listen to the recordings of the improvised soundtracks below:

DSPK ? FUTURE SOUNDINGS