Congregation
Ray Lee
Digital, Music/Sound

“Let a sonic sphere take you on a journey to a secret location, guiding you by sound alone. Seemingly possessed of its own mind it guides you through familiar and unfamiliar terrain. Can you keep the sphere ‘happy’ by going in the right direction? In return, the sphere will lead you on a sonic voyage to the mysterious final destination where you will encounter a meeting of the spheres, a chiming, pulsing web of electronic sound.”
Congregation is a participatory performance for a host of interactive sonic spheres that guide the audience to a secret location using sound alone. As the audience members walk off holding their sonic spheres, they turn a corner and find more people carrying spheres, and then they all become a congregation moving inexorably towards a central location. The work has recently been touring in South Lorea and China.
About Ray Lee
Ray Lee is an award-winning sound artist and composer. He creates spinning, whirling, and pendulous sound installations and performances that explore his fascination with “circles of ether,” the invisible forces that surround us. His immersive and mesmerising works such as Siren, the world-wide touring composition/performance for kinetic sound installation, the Ethometric Museum (winner of the 2012 British Composer of the Year for Sonic Art), and his monumental outdoor works Chorus 2013 (shortlisted for the 2014 British Composer of the Year for Sonic Art) and Ring Out 2017 (PRSF New Music Biennial award winning commission) aim to make sound art accessible and engaging for a wide audience. Force Field was awarded an honorary mention in the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica. In 2019 he was awarded commissions for his innovative interactive performance Congregation for 100 interactive sonic spheres as part of a major national (now international) tour. In 2021 his monumental installation/performance project Points of Departure was premiered at Shoreham Port for the Brighton Festival.
Funding, commissioning and partner credits:
Commissioned by Norwich and Norfolk Festival and Out There Festival Great Yarmouth with financial support from Without Walls, OCM, Oxford Brookes University and 101 Outdoor Arts, Newbury.
Image Credits
Hat Fair © Congregation by Ray Lee
Shekou Theatre Festival © Camera_XHS, Camera_104
La Strada Festival, Graz: © 18779220
Wuzhen Theatre Festival © Congregation Wuzhen