As a part of The Fragmented Orchestra Watershed took part in 24 Fragments - a 24 hour festival of music, neuroscience and performance at 24 sites across the UK. All of the events during the 24-hour festival were designed to be relayed through the distributed ‘neuronal system’ of The Fragmented Orchestra and via its web site.
The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge, geographically distributed musical structure which mirrors the way the human brain processes sound to produce a compelling and ever-changing new instrument and composition. A neuron unit was installed outside Watershed’s main entrance, it used the massive pane of glass to capture the sound of visitors, the river, passing boats, inner-city traffic, shoppers, buskers and late night revellers.
Watershed's contribution to 24 Fragments was a series of spoken word performances and talks on The Nature of Mind. Select below to listen to these talks and performances.
Watershed's Nature of Mind event was in collaboration with sound artist Paul Stapleton, violinist Gascia Ouzounian and improvisers Pedro Rebelo and Franziska Schroeder from the Sonic Lab at Queen’s University School of Music and Sonic Arts, Belfast. They conducted remote sonic explorations live from Belfast with the Fragmented Orchestra focussing on the interplay of audio from Bristol and Belfast.