Sonic Art Soldiers Saturday May 21st 2016

May, 17 2016

~World War One was a global war in Europe that took place from 28th July 1914 until 11th November 1918. Thousands died and relatives commemorate those who fought in the great war every winter as part of Remembrance Sunday.

You’d think for such a tragedy to have struck the world, over a century later they’d be little if any souvenirs or reminders that can take us back to that dark place so long ago.

Think again. Thanks to the wonders of technology a new piece of sonic art featuring letters from local lads serving King and country in France will be presented at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery from Saturday May 21st 2016.

“Homing” will transport listeners to distressing war period that took so many lives in such a brutal and destructive way.

The audience are expected to follow the journey from the Roll of Honour inside the Harris and out on to the Flag Market. It will also lead to the town’s war memorial in an epic parade.

Several months have been spent in production from artists Jen Southern and Sam Thulin. The Media Innovation Studio at UCLAN is where the work took place which included sounds from the battlefield together with readings from the letters sent home from the frontline.

The work is based on the writings which kept families back home in Preston in touch with the soldiers - some of whom would never return from the conflict. The letters have been taken from the archives of the Lancashire Infantry Museum and are a testament to the attempts of the troops and their loved ones to keep in touch despite the distance and atrocities of war.

Jen expresses these words of optimism for what the project reveals to the public,

“We hope the listeners will see the cenotaph and roll of honour in a new way through a rich landscape of sound, overlayed into the Harris Gallery and Flag market.”

The experience will commence on the staircase inside the Harris where the names of the town’s fallen are commemorated. A sound composition from the cemeteries of the Somme, recorded by the artists themselves, can be heard, with all the sensory qualities of the local conditions, including wind, rain and whistling.

The listeners will then be taken to the Flag Market and additional war memorial sounds will be the backdrop to the stories from men at the front read by UCLAN students.

Artist Jen Southern has these closing words of how the artistic interpretation of the fallen will reflect the modern day Prestonian and the soldiers before them,

“Through hearing the letters read by local young people we hope the listeners will find new connections between their own lives and those of Preston soldiers who fought in WW1.”

This Saturday May 21st 2016 :- An opportunity to reflect on the fallen in a new sonic art landscape.