Time was when anyone walking through the Clyde Tunnel
was a potentially dangerous journey. Anyone who ever used the Glasgow walk-way as
a means of getting between the north and south sides of the city or vice versa
late at night in the 1980s and lived to tell the tale will shudder at the
memory of such fool-hardy and possibly alcohol-fuelled behaviour. These days,
however, things are different in what is now a brighter, cleaner and infinitely
less scary promenade along the 762 metre concrete underpass which opened
alongside the more widely used road tunnel in 1963.
This should be made apparent when Glasgow-based international
arts producers Cryptic unveil Portal, an audio-visual walk through the tunnel
that forms one of a trio of events as part of the company’s latest events under
the Sonica banner. Normally a bi-annual festival of audio-visual art, Portal
and its accompanying spectacles of sound and vision across the city effectively
amounts to a Sonica summer special. This has largely been made possible by Festival
2018, the cultural strand of the Glasgow 2018 European Championships that will
run throughout August, and which has supported two of Sonica’s summer events,
including Portal.
“It’s something I want Glasgow to be proud of,” says
Cryptic artistic director and founder of Sonica, Cathie Boyd. “The great thing
about all of the Sonica events in Festival 2018 and all the cultural events in
Glasgow 2018 is that things that can take place which normally wouldn’t, and
that’s because the sporting events in Glasgow 2018 are helping make them
happen. The fact that all the Sonica events are free and family-friendly is
important as well.”
Portal is the brainchild of Cryptic associate artist Robbie
Thomson, who, along with composer Alex Menzies, aka techno-classical
electronicist and DJ Alex Smoke, have created a sensurround promenade through
the tunnel in what is the fifty-fifth anniversary of its opening.
“I’d always been interested in underground spaces in
Glasgow ,’ says Thomson, “and there was something about the length and the
acoustics of it as well as this brutalist architecture that already felt like
it could be the set of a science-fiction film. There’s something about its
subterranean space as well made me start thinking about a metaphorical
mythological journey that takes you down into somewhere really dark before
coming out into the light on the other side. It’s a really iconoclastic space.”
The result of this for audiences is a journey into the
unknown by way of a series of hi-tech ghost train-like interventions. A key
component of Portal is provided by Bots, a UK-based company of automation
experts who specialise in robots.
“We’re using this sculptural robotic installation
based on the idea of synthetic biological forms that are inhabitants of the
tunnel,” says Thomson. “We’ve borrowed one of the robots from Bots, and we want
to make it interactive, so it can interact with people as they’re walking
through the tunnel.
“I want people that use the tunnel a lot to come down
and have the experience of it being reimagined in this way, and to be able to
step into this futuristic world in a way that’s being used in a completely
different way to its everyday use.”
With George Square being the focal point of Festival
2018, Sonica’s contribution will be Pivot, a large-scale interactive work by
Australian artists Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey which uses artificial
intelligence to make a talking see-saw which will chat to participants who take
a ride on it. Such activity is something of a rarity even on normal see-saws, according
to Boyd.
“If you go to a lot of adventure playgrounds, there’s
a very good chance that you won’t see a see-saw at all,” she says. “That’s
because they’ve been removed for health and safety reasons, and that’s one of
the reasons we wanted Madeleine and Tim to do Pivot here.”
Already up and running is a third piece, Visaurihelix,
an inter-active audio-visual installation by Louise Harris based on the
geometric proportions that form a central part of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s
architecture. Installed in the
Mackintosh Tower at The Lighthouse, Visaurihelix features recordings taken from
six Mackintosh-designed buildings in Glasgow played over a thirty-minute loop
spread out over six speakers on each floor of the tower. Visual representations
of the composition will come from a purpose-built circular construction situated
at the base of the tower. An interactive sonic element utilises bowed and
e-bowed piano strings connected between the different levels of the staircase.
“It stems from my lifelong obsession with Mackintosh
design,” says Harris, who recorded inside such iconic spaces as Scotland Street
School, House for an Art Lover and the Lighthouse itself. “Walking through each
space, I was surprised how how differently they all sounded. Each one has an
individual character, and I think it will be interesting how hearing them in
the narrow space of the staircase affects things. Things will sound different
depending on where you’re standing. Then when you get to the top it will almost
be like looking down into a wishing well.”
Since Sonica began in 2012, its fusion of sound,
vision and state-of-art technology has burrowed its way around numerous Glasgow
spaces on a bi-annual basis, and has toured work across the UK. Cryptic has
also taken Sonica to Australia, France, Indonesia and South Korea, exploring
each country’s own audio-visual adventures along the way. With more than five
hundred events having taken place across six continents, this year Sonica
received the Scottish Award for New Music in Creative Programming. With the
next full Sonica festival planned for 2019, the Festival 2018 Sonica summer
season sees Cryptic’s hi-tech interventions coming home to roost.
“It’s about celebrating the city we’re in,” says Boyd,
“but most of all, for Cryptic and for Sonica, it’s about doing events that
people will remember.”
Visaurihelix, The Lighthouse, Glasgow until January
2019; Pivot, George Square, Glasgow, August 1-12; Portal, Clyde Tunnel,
Glasgow, August 2-12. All events are free, although tickets need to be booked
for Portal.
ends
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