Cities and Memory installation at the Ashmolean Museum

We’re delighted to announce that this Friday (3 March), there will be a Cities and Memory installation at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford – the oldest public museum in Britain.

We’ll be taking over the Chinese paintings gallery at the museum with a bespoke, immersive installation called Cities and Memory: Oxford Sounds.

This is a unique audio installation unique that uses the sounds of Oxford to present two sides of sonic memory – the documentary field recordings of the iconic sounds of our city, and second the reimagining, or ‘memory’ version of the sounds.

The installation features some of Oxford’s most iconic sounds, from the reading room at the world-famous Radcliffe Camera to the annual May Morning celebration via fairgrounds, birdsong, church bells and choir practices.

There will be two sets of speakers at different ends of the installation space, with sufficient space between them to allow audience members to move around and create their own mix and experience of the sounds through their physical location in the space.

The listener can choose – by his or her own physical proximity – to experience freely the two sound worlds, changing the way the installation is experienced simply by moving around the room.

The installation is part of the Museum’s Supersonic Live Friday event, curated by Oxford Contemporary Music – tickets are available here.