I’ve been collaborating with the theatre company Uninvited Guests for a few decades now. Most recently we have been using participatory performance, creative technologies and immersive sound to support people in imagining preferable futures for their local environments, and in decision-making about their neighbourhoods. Future Soundings is the most recent project to explore these ideas.
It’s a combined workshop and performance that starts with participants taking a walk through their local environment. A mobile app on their phone prompts them to imagine travelling forwards through time and asks them to describe what they might see and hear in the places they pass. When they return, a science-fiction story, made collectively from the futures that participants have imagined, is performed live with an improvised spatial soundscape. As the sound fills the room, this possible world materialises around them.
We’ve been testing out Future Soundings in a number of different contexts. Initially we staged it as an online event with participants in Durban, Bristol and Lagos creating a shared future vision as part of Future Leaders International Lab. Last year we worked in partnership with DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) and communities along the Bristol Avon, from its source to its mouth, imagining futures they want for their local river and environment. In November we ran it for Partners for a New Economy at their Tipping Points event in Brussels, creating the soundscapes of different economic futures.
“What a powerful tribute to what imagination can do… Being able to open our minds and explore what futures are possible is really important"
I think there’s something about the inherent ambiguity of sound (e.g. what’s making that noise?) that offers an increased space for the imagination. When the sources of a sound are unknown it sits on the boundary between the actual and the possible.
Over the coming months I’ll be sharing some more reflections on the potential for sound in futures practices. In the meantime please get in touch if you’d like to know more or to explore potential collaborations.
It is available to book - please contact hello@duncanspeakman.net