Voyages // 2023 - Collusion

Voyages // 2023

Two innovative audio experiences

Time Quest for families and Spectral: in the Flesh for adults are permanently installed at Battersea Arts Centre in collaboration with artist Frazer Merrick.


Voyages

Collusion and Frazer Merrick have created two Voyages, permanent new visitor experiences for Battersea Arts Centre, based on the sound-to-light approach used in Frazer’s Arcadia project. The Voyages are exciting audio experiences that encourage visitors to tour Battersea Arts Centre discovering hidden stories, written by LH Trevail, within the building.

Time Quest
A free family experience permanently installed within the building. This non-linear, interactive experience will take families on a 30-45min. adventure around the building, discovering ghosts of the future hidden within the lights. Time Quest incorporates Battersea Art Centre’s existing installations with stories relating the to core values celebrated in the artworks: Courage, Inclusivity, Determination, Collaboration, Integrity, Honesty. The narrative explores possible futures for Battersea Arts Centre, creating a playful and hopeful commentary on the climate crisis, human interactions and the future of performing arts.

Time Quest can be replayed multiple times. There are 18 stories hidden within the building, three will be heard on each visit but there are 540 unique combinations of the experience!

Step into Battersea Art Centre and experience a time-bending, mind-wobbling journey! Hidden lights have become portals to infinite possible futures, and it’s up to you to uncover their secrets. Equipped with your amazing Electro Acoustic Receiver (E.A.R.) devices, you will embark on a curious adventure to explore, listen, and discover what the future holds. Time Quest is a fun and interactive experience for all the family, that will guide you around Battersea Arts Centre’s beautiful corridors, with plenty of surprises along the way.

Time Quest ran at Battersea Arts Centre February – April 2024, it will be relaunched in July 2024 with new narrative content to celebrate Battersea Arts Centre’s 50th anniversary.

Spectral: in the flesh
The second, much scarier, experience is aimed at adults, who will explore the building after dark, using the same listening devices to find lamps positioned around the otherwise empty building. Historical lighting found in the Battersea Arts Centre archive has been reconditioned and brought back into use for this project.

Are you afraid of the dark? Join the hosts of the UK’s premier ghost-hunting show, uncovering parts of the story as you make your way through a near-empty Battersea Arts Centre at night. Inspired by accounts from real people, Spectral: in the Flesh is a guided experience that will let you journey through BAC’s hidden spaces, looking for dimly lit lamps which will reveal fragments of a ghost story.

Spectral will be launched for Halloween 2024.

Both Voyages use innovative Electro Acoustic Receiver (E.A.R.s), created by Dave Cranmer for this project, to listen to frequencies within the lights in the building. The E.A.R. is built upon Frazer’s Photon Smasher technology, a microphone which uses a solar cell to convert light into sound. The microphone allows you to hear the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) of LED light sources, where the frequency of the LEDs PWM becomes the frequency of sound. Frazer’s early experiments were listening to existing lights and illumination infrastructure, but more recently Frazer began to experiment with controlling the lights themselves, by modulating the power to the lights with audio. This technique allows the broadcast of sound via light, and underpins the Voyages experiences at Battersea.

Lead artist Frazer said:

“This technology behind these Voyages enables really exciting experiences for the visitors. I love that the experiences encourage you to explore, and reward you for being curious.”

Images: Frazer Merrick

 

Artists

Producers

Rachel Drury, Rich Hall, Producers

Frazer Merrick, Creative Producer

Jo Clarke, Project Manager

Battersea Arts Centre

 

 


Creative Team

Frazer Merrick, Lead Artist

LH Trevail, Writer

Dave Cranmer, Creative Technologist

Slade Design, Graphic Design

Samuels Electrical, Electrician

 

 


Voice Actors // Time Quest

Mercedes Browne – E.A.R. Instructions

Toyin Ayedun-Alase – Pilot

Edalia Day – Dreamer, BAC Staff

Giles Stoakley – Serving Staff 1, Surveyor 2, Serving Staff 2

Cathy Coneff – Surveyor, Kind Soul

Michelle Kelly – Comfortable Friend, New Hire, Musician 1

Birte Widman – Young’un 2, Ghost Hunter, Musician 2

Maddison Nixon – Young’un 1, Ghost Hunter 1, Birthday Celebrator

John Rayment – Performer waiting for show to start, Alien 1

Callum Hale – Queuer 2, Entomologist, Tour Guide, Cleanup Crew 2

Anna Tolputt – Alien 2, Stage Manager, Queuer 1, Friend, Cleanup Crew 1, Suspicious Interdimensional Being

 

 


Voice Actors // Spectral: in the flesh

Anna Tolputt – EAR Instructions

Giles Stoakley – Presenter

Becky Wright – Sound Technician

 

 


Partners

  • Battersea Arts Centre