Audio-visual collage of archive film, photographs and audio from the North East, replaying every hour on the hour across 36 screens in Culture House Sunderland.
Timepiece opens at Culture House on Monday 16 November, and it's not a one-off — it's a celebratory time signal that'll play every hour on the hour for a whole year. It's an audio-visual work spread across 36 screens over three floors, so it's something you can catch whenever you're passing through the building rather than a single show you have to be there for at a set time.
Behind it is a trio of North East artists: Ross Millard, the musician and sound artist from The Futureheads; video artist and sound designer Jeremy Bradfield; and creative technologist Ben Lawrence. They've built it from a huge range of archive film, photographs and audio held by the University of Sunderland, The Bunker, Ashbrooke Sports Club, Friends of Roker Pier and Lighthouse, Ryhope Engine Museum, Sunderland Libraries and the North East Film Archive, with help from historians Lynder Mathieson, Keith Gregson and Keith Cockerill. The oldest photo goes back to about 1913, so it reaches back over a century of the city's life.
Each fifty-second audio-visual collage replays randomly across those 36 screens, meaning no two hours are the same. The subjects are all over the place: a 1950s bus ride, a Hindustan Shipping Co. ship launching at Doxford shipyard, 1960s glassblowing, Vaux Breweries, Roker Park, the Stadium of Light, Joplings department store's clock and Penshaw Monument. It's a real mix of the industrial and the everyday, the old and the more recent, all coming back in short bursts.
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It's commissioned as part of Digital Spaces, supported by The Space in association with Arts Council England. You'll find it in the City Lounge atrium of Culture House, Keel Square, High Street West, Sunderland SR1 3DZ. It starts from 10:00 GMT on Monday 16 November and runs every hour on the hour for a year, so there's plenty of time to see it.
