Titled The Dreamer is Still Asleep, the artwork is part of our ‘How We Used to Sleep’ programme, exploring the ‘golden age’ of sleep in Tudor England in partnership with Manchester University, and will be at Little Moreton Hall from 29 July – 29 October.
Like many homes of the time, Little Moreton Hall was a space of social engagement where many came to visit, and, with hustle and bustle all around and irregular patterns of life for guests and household alike, a sound night’s sleep was an impossibility for many.
The Dreamer is Still Asleep is a sound and aromatic installation that explores the transcendent state between sleeping and waking with sounds that would once have filled the hall. Visitors can expect a sonic experience of blurry dreamfulness, where voices, music, footsteps and glasses clinking together merge with a musical ambience to create an atmospheric and cinematic experience.
This exciting new work is the creation of Scanner, internationally recognised artist and composer Robin Rimbaud, whose works traverse the experimental terrain between sound, space, and form.
Over the last twenty-five years Robin has focused on bringing to life many of the invisible or overlooked aspects of our world in ways that embrace both the cultural and historical in a playful, engaging and thoughtful manner.
In 2012 he wrote The Big Dance in Trafalgar Square for the London Olympics while last year he scored the world’s first ever virtual reality ballet, Nightfall, with Dutch National Ballet and installed sound works in Rijeka Airport, Croatia and at National Trust Cliveden in Buckinghamshire.
Robin’s work can also be heard on permanent display in the Science Museum and the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum in London, while his portrait also hangs as part of the permanent collection in the National Portrait Gallery London.
Robin says, "To me a building is always more than just a building. It’s a place of memory, of engagement, a place that reflects history. Little Moreton Hall offers up a wealth of history. Imagine if even the walls themselves could tell of all the events of the past, the stories they’ve witnessed. The location itself radiates with history.
My work will bring the space alive in subtle ways previously unimagined, reaching an audience that would otherwise never experience such sonic art, opening up the space in so many new ways, and let the ghosts of the past bring new joy to contemporary visitors."
The Dreamer is still Asleep is being delivered by the National Trust through Trust New Art, in partnership with Cheshire East Council through their SHIFT programme of creative events celebrating all things digital.
