boy you turn me
Boy
You Turn Me was a specially commissioned sound installation for
Birmingham Book Festival 2011, supported by Arts Council England and the
PRS Foundation For Music. The piece explored the hidden life of an
empty shop in Birmingham’s Pavilions shopping centre using two layers of
text and music, scored by contemporary classical composer Ailís Ní
Ríain.
David created a fictional story from memories and comments collected from workers, shoppers and security staff in the Pavilions, from other local people he bumped into, and from research at the Birmingham City Archives & Heritage Service. He got a real sense of the history of the Pavilions, of the High Street, and of the shop, Natural World, which used to occupy the space, and he was also inspired by the octagonal counter in the middle of the abandoned retail space. This was exaggerated for the installation with an enclosure to divide the inner and outer soundscapes, and these could be experienced separately or at the same time by moving around the space. “The last tenant of the empty shop was a company called Natural World that sold crystals, jigsaws, plastic animals, fossils, sharks teeth - a little like a museum gift shop - and I have taken this as my theme for the story, making it a hymn to the ghost of a forgotten shop and a lament for the people who used to work there,” says David.
“It takes a short while to adapt to the different noises clashing together, but you soon become immersed in the world, natural or otherwise, being described”
Creative Times
Read the full Creative Times review of Boy You Turn Me here.
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David created a fictional story from memories and comments collected from workers, shoppers and security staff in the Pavilions, from other local people he bumped into, and from research at the Birmingham City Archives & Heritage Service. He got a real sense of the history of the Pavilions, of the High Street, and of the shop, Natural World, which used to occupy the space, and he was also inspired by the octagonal counter in the middle of the abandoned retail space. This was exaggerated for the installation with an enclosure to divide the inner and outer soundscapes, and these could be experienced separately or at the same time by moving around the space. “The last tenant of the empty shop was a company called Natural World that sold crystals, jigsaws, plastic animals, fossils, sharks teeth - a little like a museum gift shop - and I have taken this as my theme for the story, making it a hymn to the ghost of a forgotten shop and a lament for the people who used to work there,” says David.
“It takes a short while to adapt to the different noises clashing together, but you soon become immersed in the world, natural or otherwise, being described”
Creative Times
Read the full Creative Times review of Boy You Turn Me here.
< Back
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