As part of this project, and together with the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea, Glyndebourne and Photoworks have co-commissioned Auditorium, a film and sound installation, which brings together the creative talents of artist Sophy Rickett and composer Ed Hughes to develop a new piece of exciting visual art. The piece is created in response to the modern architecture of the new opera house and both contrasts with and complements the beauty of the South Downs and the traditions of Glyndebourne’s past. In Auditorium the artists have been working towards a cinematic language that expresses the complex relationship between moving imagery, music and sound.
Auditorium is the central focus of the multi-layered Photoperative project, which began in 2005 and which combines three main elements: performance, exhibition and documentation. All these aspects are linked by an education project involving twelve music and photography students from East Sussex Academy of Music and Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College together with the South Downs Youth Orchestra. Photoperative gives the students the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from Sophy and Ed’s diverse working processes and the students’ own work mirrors the artists’ cross art-form commission, pairing up to produce six new pieces alongside the work of the main artists.
Biographies for Sophy Rickett and Ed Hughes are available here.
Performance
The Photoperative project culminated in a showing of Auditorium at Glyndebourne on Saturday 17 November 2007. Auditorium was the central piece in a programme which included the work of the students of East Sussex Academy of Music and Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College, along with music by Rossini and Schumann played by The South Downs Youth Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Warnes.
Exhibition
The installation of Auditorium, a film by Sophy Rickett with music by Ed Hughes, commissioned by Photoworks, Glyndebourne Education and the De la Warr Pavilion is now on as part of the exhibition, Triple Echo, at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, East Sussex until 6 January 2008.
Documentation
Following the great success of Photoperative last year, a new book will be published by Photoworks in the Spring that fully documents the work of this ambitious collaborative project and explores in more depth the film AUDITORIUM by artist Sophy Rickett and composer Ed Hughes that formed the project’s focal point. The book also includes newly commissioned essays about AUDITORIUM by Chris Townsend (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Nicholas Till (University of Sussex), an extended interview with the artists, as well as work produced as part of the project by students from Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College and the East Sussex Music Academy, and commentaries about the project by the students and other participants. In addition the book will include comprehensive visual documentation of the film, its installation at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill as part of the exhibition Triple Echo, and its spectacular live performance at Glyndebourne in November 2007, when it was accompanied by the Sussex Downs Youth Orchestra. Also including a special DVD of Auditorium, this book provides a beautiful record of and unique insight into this multifaceted project.
AUDITORIUM and Photoperative, a Photoworks Publication, Spring 2008.
144 pages, hardback with dust jacket, 240x190mm, approx 100 colour and b&w plates.
Price: to be confirmed.