The Barbican’s car parks will be transformed into an underground club for the first time as part of a new exhibition.
A series of 11 commissions and installations will take place across the Barbican Centre as part of the Feel the Sound exhibition, which will explore people’s relationships with sound and “embracing a world of listening that goes beyond the audio”.
Spaces including its entrance on Silk Street, its lakeside terrace and for the first time its underground car parks, will be used as part of the exhibition, which will run between May and August.
Audiences have been invited to “lose themselves in an underground car park club space, sing with a digital quantum choir, listen to their inner symphony, experience music without sound and discover a song for their future self” as part of the exhibition.
Announcing the installations, the Barbican said Feel the Sound “is an invitation to awaken the senses, embrace our sonic world and discover the sound in each of us”.
The brutalist art centre will produce a new collaboration with Boiler Room to celebrate 15 years of the party broadcasters filming club culture.
Meanwhile, the Barbican has worked with Temporary Pleasure, which describes itself as a rave architecture collective, to turn its Car Park 5 into a temporary club space.
‘Boy racer’ subculture will collide with DIY music communities and modified car sound systems will be reimagined as “instruments of music, memory and connection”, the Barbican added.
The Barbican’s summer programme is expected to include talks, film screenings, free music gigs as well as club nights.
The arts complex in the heart of the City has launched a public consultation on the proposals to fix “significant deterioration” of many of the Grade II listed structures, upgrade ageing building systems, and open up underused spaces in time for its 50th anniversary.
The centre, designed by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, was constructed on London’s biggest post-war bombsite and hailed by Queen Elizabeth II at its 1982 opening, as “one of the wonders of the modern world.”
Devyani Saltzman, Director for Arts & Participation, Barbican Centre said: "This exhibition marks the continued growth of Barbican Centre as a leading producer and presenter of immersive experiences and is a cornerstone of our Summer season."
Luke Kemp, Head of Creative Programme at Barbican Immersive added: “Feel the Sound is an invitation to explore the expanded world of sound, how we feel it, see it and the possibilities it provides for us to understand ourselves and the world differently.
“Ultimately, we are sonic beings. This is an exciting opportunity to open up new spaces across the Barbican and think about where we encounter sound both in our bodies and throughout the Centre.
“Feel the Sound joins our roster of experiential exhibitions which launch at the Barbican before touring the world. Previously we’ve focused on AI (AI, More Than Human), the climate emergency (Our Time on Earth), and this time, the rhythm of the planet and our bodies.”
