The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) provided the inspiration for the project through its Illuminate scheme which supports the reinterpretation of existing museum collections.
In 2002, the Naughton Gallery had hosted a very successful sound art show, Invisible Cities, co-curated by Shan McAnena and Chris Murphy, which featured 20 international sound artists, and which has subsequently toured Malta, Brussels and Naples with the support of the British Council. It has also been the subject of millions of web hits – out stripping Italo Calvino's book of the same name - and thousands of downloads. The success of this project suggested that sound might be a way of uniting the silver collection.
The Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) at Queen's had developed a new locative media project using handheld systems in collaboration with Belfast Exposed photographic gallery which was presented at the 2005 Arts Council of Northern Ireland conference in Derry.
The creative network was established and everyone was excited about the prospect of collaborating to resolve the display/interpretative issues for the collection, introducing and showcasing the new media technology that is currently available and providing visitors of all ages, abilities and interests with a stimulating and inspiring experience.
The idea of commissioning a new piece of silver and the soundscapes evolved along with the prospect of the visitor becoming totally immersed in the design of their own multiple layered soundscape. It soon became apparent that the facility for the visitor to manipulate and create silver designs using virtual software whilst learning about new and ancient techniques was also an option.
This project uses technology which has been developed by SARC which allows visitors to explore and interact with individual items on display on many levels. Using hand held computers the visitor selects an item and accesses information on the piece. They are also able to trigger a soundscape, commissioned from one of ten internationally renowned sound artists. These soundscapes respond to the provenance of a particular piece of silverware and explore the reasons for its creation, donation and use and combine with the silver objects to create a new immersive artwork.
The brief for commissioning these sound works proposed a collaboration between the sound artists – the works were created to stand alone but also to complement each other so that the visitor can activate two or more simultaneously to create an almost infinite variety of compositions.
