Welcome to
Squidsoup’s works experiment with the use of light in space, sound, scale, and movement, to create immersive works that invite an emotional response. The works are designed to be seen in a shared context, and from any angle, from within or without. They are inclusive and immersive by their nature. They blur the boundaries between the works and the space they inhabit. By entering into that space, you become part of the experience, part of the work. The narrative that evolves is one of changing ambience and intensity; starting with a gentle melancholia, the works evolve through increasing scale, edge and intensity to a final crescendo where visitors are physically overloaded with sound and light – a direct reference to the Sublime.
THE WORKS
Collective Isolation (2021)
Suspended, floating, ephemeral sonic volume.
A quiet, but not silent, liminal space for private reflection and contemplation, encouraging a state of mind where time seems to drift and loop.
Aurora (2019)
Using Aerogel to evoke images of icebergs or the Northern Lights, but in miniature.
Aerogel is a man-made silicon based material, also known as ‘solid smoke’. It is the lightest known solid and has many unique qualities: it is an excellent insulator, developed by NASA to collect space dust, and produces strange optical effects. Aurora augments this strange material with light. The result is an odd hybrid material, not what it seems. Beguiling and beautiful, it embodies both digital and physical material. Initially developed during a SWCTN fellowship, 2019
Granularities (2023)
A series of works using ‘Musou Black’, a paint that absorbs up to 99.4% of all reflected light, giving an almost perfect black.
Squidsoup’s exploration of immersion is one of composition in light and space. Their best known works use large scale and shared experience as an enveloping environment. In contrast, Granularities offers a dimensionless, meaningless, darkness, set against bright white. Pure contrast. Yet the images can entice us into seeing space, absence and meaning.
THE STUDIO
Circular Echoes (2021)
A symbol of completeness, wholeness, the centre - or a boundary?
Circular Echoes is a circle of light with varying moods. Calm, touchable yet distant, contained yet infinite, liminal, transgressable. Its orbs emanate light and sound, together creating a whirling, spatialised audio-visual symphony. The piece can be experienced from inside or outside the circle, each vantage point giving a unique perspective on the work and the composition.
Wave (2018-23)
A 500 part voice and light experience in the form of a breaking wave
Each point of light, in the form of an orb, is also a point of sound. Collectively these orbs become an illuminated choir of voices – a choreographed space within which each unit contributes to the overall composition, both visually and sonically, as washes of choral voices flow through the breaking wave and over our heads. Original commission: Salisbury Cathedral, UK, 2018
Phase Shifter (2019-23)
A kinetic sculpture that creates a shifting audio-visual landscape.
A composition of changing forms and sound, Phase Shifter draws us into its undulating form as sound, light and flowing movement attempt to beguile and unbalance us. Original commission: Real Ideas Organisation, 2021
Submergence (2013-23)
An immersive walkthrough experience visualising virtual presence and movement in physical 3D space.
Over 10,000 individually controlled points of light suspended in space create impressions of imagined forces and presence; dynamic digital objects that share our physical space. The work consists of a series of abstract scenes, each with its own specific atmosphere and ambience, that gradually build in momentum to a final ecstatic crescendo. Original commission: Galleri ROM, Oslo
Sola (2021-23)
A vision of the Sublime, or shock and awe to the senses...
SOLA aims to create a visceral hit, stunning audiences with a blast of blinding sunlight, a monolithic slab of guitar power-chord and a Turneresque cloudscape that appears from nowhere. The light appears to emanate from an infinite distance away. Original commission: Hyundai UK for Guys and ST Thomas NHS Trust, 2021
