Daniel Harris

Play.Orchestra

Home > Installation

In brief

Client

Royal Festival Hall

Role

Installation designer

Length

6 weeks

Team

6x Installation designers

Deliverable

Complete and working interactive installation

Design process

Design reviews, technology research, sound design, wiring strategy, build

The detail

Play.orchestra recreated an empty orchestra pit of 60 seats.

Passers-by could take the stage and experience a musical piece from the player's perspective by triggering a recording of the correspondening musical instrument. As more people sat down, the composition progressively revealed itself as a whole.

A Major commission by the Royal Festival Hall and Philharmonia Orchestra, Play.Orchestra was developed by a team from Central Saint Martin's MA Narrative Environments course. My involvement was from the early stages, researching, and developing the idea that was to become the installation that has been recently featured on BBCs Radio 4s Today programme, The Times, Bloomberg, The Telegraph, Radio 5 Live, BBC3, and BBCs Newsround.

I went on to configure the various human, computer and physical interfaces used in the build. 2 miles of cable were labelled and loomed to connect the 56 seats and 3 wheelchair accessible hotspots with the control system. The system ran on a midi based Max MSP system designed by Iamthemightyjungulator

The Objective was to get non-traditional audiences to experience an orchestra from new perspectives, and to participate in the composition process. For this purpose, a bluetooth system was set up, where members of the public could submit their own audio samples for use in the final weeks of the commission.