An audiovisual installation inspired by the Sussex Downs, by Karen Tilley, in collaboration with Kevin Grist (immersive sound).
Solace toured Seaford Crypt Gallery and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, responding to each site through projected film, an original musical score, reflective sculpture and collected sounds.
In its final iteration, and in light of global events, Solace was reconfigured as an interactive 360 digital work.
Funded by Arts Council England and East Sussex Arts Partnership.
Immersive installation.
“My work is inspired by the everyday sounds and visual moments that people often overlook or miss. By collating and reforming these components, I invite the audience to immerse themselves in an experience otherwise unseen or unheard”
Solace was a collaboration between Karen Tilley and the musician Kevin Grist.
Karen Tilley is a visual artist working in a multi discipline practice, which includes film, photography, audio and sculpture. Her ideas determine the process and mediums that will be incorporated into the artwork.
The artists have combined their skills to research open space and audio. They are interested in individuals interact with open space as a way to escape the emotional stress of the urban habitat, and what is left behind and what is taken from the interaction of open natural spaces of managed land.
By using film to capture the beauty of woodland, and then combining the visual representation with sound – derived from both the urban and natural environment – then manipulated using digital technology. Karen then introduced sculpture for the installation space. The sculpture acts as a path viewed through negative space immersing both the visual and the individual into the installation.
The work becomes disconnected from its natural open habitat and is reconstructed in the digital world feeding the audience with moments that are often missed and others that are questioned as authentic.
Presenting the question, what role has the natural world within a digital culture?
Solace was exhibited in three venues and extended to the wider audience through workshops that re-composed birdsong, captured from participants gardens, with the opportunity to create and play their own Sussex birdsong using sampler keyboards. Each of the three exhibitions evolved in response to materials submitted by local participants, resulting in an authentic community co-production. Solace: relief from emotional distress