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Creative direction
and sound design by David Bickerstaff
Client: The
Victoria and Albert Museum
Exhibition concept and design: Universal
Design Studios
Sound production: Newangle
and Tom
Belton
Sound spacialised over an 8 speaker array
in a yellow corridor.
Fragile Planet makes up the concluding section of the exhibition
Cold War Modern at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. There
are no objects in this exit space but it evokes the closing themes
of Cold War Modern through sound.
Cold War Modernity produced a wealth of hi-tech
developments which can be represented through sound: the bleep of
the sputnik, electronic noises which suggest satellite communications,
the crackle of a radio tuning in or being jammed, fragments of tv
dialogue and music from the period, disembodied and broken voices
suggested the first broadcast from space, or from covert listening
devices, or illegal broadcasts made from West to East. Some of these
sounds emanated from communications made from up in space, bounced
off the ring of satellites and tv towers surrounding the earth.
This collection of broadcast/electronic sounds would suggest what
Marshall Mcluhan referred to as a ‘vast cosmic membrane’
– a web of information and technology surrounding the world,
constructed under Cold War conditions. Sounds picked up from tv
and radio broadcast also suggest how ideas permeated between West
and East, across the Iron Curtain.
The aim is to use this soundscape to provide
a thoughtful pause for the visitor as they exit the show.
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