LISTENING FURNITURE -
SONIC SCULPTURE
Listening Furniture - A collaboration between choreographer Charlotte Spencer and sound artist, Alberto Ruiz Soler
Central artistic ideas behind Listening Furniture (LF)
Listening Furniture is a sonic sculpture the size of a single bed designed for public spaces. The project arises from the desire of making a reflective space where sound can be felt as well as heard. Participants lie, sit, lean, stand on the structure, alone or with a friend, to experience a 10-minute choreographed soundscape, structured in three layers:
physical layer (low-frequency vibrations) moves rhythmically across the body, sometimes soothing, sometimes insistent;
textural layer (modified field recordings, thunder, machines, trains…) evokes environments both familiar and dreamlike;
musical layer (drone-like synths) using tactile and audible frequencies, gently guides through the emotional terrain.
The sculpture will be purpose built from wood with a soft surface, in collaboration with Cab Workshop. Underneath, eight surface transducers (5 subwoofers & 3 tweeters) translate sound into vibrations. Subwoofers create deep, physical sensations; tweeters produce mid-to-high frequencies to complete the sonic range. All components are hidden from view.
Inspired by magical realism, where ordinary objects possess strange capacities, LF treats the object as a threshold, an entry point into another layer of reality or an inner realm. For some, it feels like sinking. For others, like floating. Some remember a voice from a dream, the hum of a radiator, the rhythm of passing trains. Others feel only a low warmth. Beyond our ears, there is a somatosensory channel to sound perception: bones, skin, and fascia can detect and transmit vibratory energy. Low-frequency vibration and slow rhythmic sound can stimulate the vagus nerve, promoting a parasympathetic activation (rest and digest), contributing to deep relaxation, slower heart rate and a drop in cortisol. Although LF isn’t a therapeutic device, we are keen for its design to echo some principles of neurofeedback: by providing sensory input that rewards stillness, presence, and attunement, it helps the listener become aware of and regulate their internal state. We are interested in how binaural rhythms and slow pulsations can entrain brainwaves and heart rate, supporting states like alpha (relaxation), theta (meditative, creative), and even delta (deep sleep). The movement of sound and vibration across the body enables us to experiment with choreography as something experiential above visual. LF approach to embodied listening and inclusive sensory design focuses on questions of how we inhabit and are inhabited by sound, how histories and atmospheres might be carried through vibration, and how physical proximity alters the way we perceive space, time, and narrative. LF is about your attention, your body and whatever you carry quietly within yourself.
LF is designed with sensory inclusivity at its core. During initial testing we confirmed that it provides a meaningful experience for B/VI audiences through vibration, touch, and spatial listening. During the next phase we will develop the work further for d/Deaf and neurodiverse communities. The way LF transmits sound as vibration in the body and not through hearing, can remove barriers to those with hearing impairments. The inclusion of volume control, earplugs and physical cushions around the space allows the audience to regulate the intensity of both the vibrations and the sound. This empowers individuals with heightened sensory awareness, sensory processing difficulties to shape their encounter, offering both stimulation and safety. The development of additional accessibility features will continue to prioritise inclusivity, ensuring that every participant, regardless of their sensory experience, can find a way to connect with the work.
Why this project? Why now?
Relevant & current: Most of the media and art we consume is saturated by screens, spectacle and speed; phones mediate most interactions, and many of us feel disconnected from our own bodies. LF invites you to tune into other senses (vibration, sound, weight, texture), to slow down, lie down, and listen. Not with your ears alone, but with your whole body. It is accessible not because it has been adapted, but because it was built that way from the beginning.
Radical care & necessity: In a political climate shaped by austerity, inequality and erosion of public services and care infrastructures; creating spaces that centre rest, attention, and embodied presence becomes a radical offering and a basic necessity. LF quietly asserts that slowness, accessibility, and intimacy have value, especially in places where hyper-productivity, economic precarity, and social fragmentation are increasingly normalised.
Inclusive art and rest in public space: We want to occupy public spaces because they are being privatised and often don’t feel welcome. Those spaces are shaped by speed, surveillance, consumption, and exclusion. Our goal is to make space for people with disabilities, with fatigue, with grief, with sensory difference; people often excluded not just from art spaces, but from public life more broadly. LF proposes an alternative social contract. One where care is not a luxury, rest is not a reward, and the body is not a site of shame or excess, but of perception, memory, and possibility. Creating inclusive, reflective, non-verbal spaces is not only an artistic gesture, but a political one. And culture is not just what we produce, but how we choose to be together.
Integrated approach to accessibility: CSP is committed to an inclusive, trauma informed and accessible approach to making and sharing art. Through this project we will be examining all potential access barriers and working closely with access consultants, Shivaangee Agrawal, Katie Fenwick and Orange Collective to remove as many barriers to participation as possible. This includes embedding Audio Description into the creative process, creating an audio introduction, working with BSL interpreter & targeting D/deaf, BVI, neurodivergent and hypersensitive audiences to test and feedback on the access adaptations; making all activities available free of charge; placing artworks in civic/community-led/public spaces; 3 reflective practice sessions with Orange Collective across the duration of the project and a facilitated Peer Support Session to reflect on responses from test audiences; risk assess potential traumatic triggers & integrate learning. This work will improve the overall safety of the work to the general public especially when it is being presented in a hospital setting.
Contexts for presentation
This project builds on the learning from an initial concept testing research phase and allows time for detailed development of the sculptural object, choreographic and composition sonic design, integration of access considerations, and piloting a variety of trialling presentation formats and contexts. It gives us the vital opportunity to gather a wide range of audience feedback from d/Deaf, B/VI and neurodiverse communities embedding the project in civic and hospital settings through strategic partnership development with significant trauma informed support from Orange Collective through a series of Reflective Session and co-facilitated Peer Support Session.
LF functions not only as an artwork but as a sensory threshold offering visitors the chance to rest, reset, and regulate their nervous systems through vibration and choreographed immersive listening. LF is designed to be placed in a wide variety of public spaces: foyers of arts venues, resting spots in public spaces, hospitals, libraries, galleries, outdoor contexts, arts/music festivals. It is quick to install, flexible, requires minimal invigilation, and is aurally non-intrusive. Fabric drapes can be used to create a sense of screening and privacy.
In these fast-paced environments there is often little space for pause, introspection, or sensory care. LF offers a unique and much needed invitation to stop and simply feel. This intimate, embodied experience within the flow of public life creates a quiet, non-verbal refuge that is open and accessible to many, including those who are B/VI, D/deaf, neurodivergent, or hypersensitive.
Where the idea came from
LF emerged of an invitation from Charlotte to collaborate on her new curated exhibition (in development), we are all memory bodies. LF will form one of six artworks in that collection, but is also imagined as a stand alone artwork. we are all memory bodies brings together five participatory artworks and a film installation authored by eight independent artists to explore the delicate relationships between felt experience and memory - the focus of Charlotte’s creative output since 2020. The collection traces personal archives and human connection through radical acts of care, exchange and rest. Audiences are invited to engage through hands-on invitations to work with tactile materials, crafting, conversation, listening, watching and resting. Audiences are brought into their tactile, porous, relational bodies and share in simple, but surprisingly profound acts of doing and making and exchanging.
In a world that commodifies health and wellbeing, waamb radically reclaims individual and community agency, prioritising embodiment, accessible design and active engagement in creativity as key pillars for healing and repair of our bodies and our communities. It aims to foster greater feelings of ease, social connection and belonging.
LF also builds on Alberto’s current exploration on how sound can create a sense of place and influence our mode of attention and how technology can offer new sonic experiences that are intuitive and embodied. A recent example is Alberto’s collaboration with William Fairbrother titled Paso, a barefoot spatial sound experience that reimagines the ancient chalk land bridge which once connected Britain to France. In Paso, participants remove their shoes and walk across a large bed of soil while wearing headphones that use spatial tracking to alter the sound depending on their location. Temperature changes beneath the feet and shifting ground-level lighting complete the sensory landscape. The work created an embodied narrative of deep time, migration, and transformation, while maintaining a welcoming, accessible environment for B/VI and sighted visitors.
In Charlotte and Alberto’s first collaboration, theatre work, Written in the Body (2022) they worked with sound and vibration as a form of touch. LF takes that enquiry in a new direction, placing the bodily encounter for each audience member at the centre of the exploration.
Developing audiences
Evidencing Demand
Success of previous work
• Strategically and methodically built lasting community embedded partnerships across Brighton, East and West Sussex since 2021 including working with 15 libraries, Crawley Borough Council, community and wellbeing organisations (eg Hospitable Environment CIC - Newhaven, Network for International Women), creative health organisations (therapeutic gardening space, Rockinghorse Charity - The Alexandra Children’s Hospital).
• Written in the Body (2022): Co-comissioned by Sadler’s Wells & Brighton Festival. Sell-out performances. 4* Reviews in The Guardian
• ITAWL: 5 key locations (2017 & 2021); 21 performances; 1,382 participating audience members. 4* Review in The Guardian
• Walking Stories (2013-2021): 42 venues; 203 performances; 3200+ participating audience members. It has been used to lead staff training for libraries, charities, students, businesses. Programmed by arts & non-arts organisations. 4* Review in The Guardian
New demand & commissions
• This project has support from existing partners (SED, Sussex University, Crawley Library, Rockinghorse Charity) and new partners (Figment Arts, Sight Support Worthing, Orange Collective & Flarewave Arts) with confirmed support-in-kind and funding.
• Lead artists, Charlotte and Alberto are in high demand as experienced artists, facilitators, speakers & mentors.
Audience Objectives
Specific
• Ensure works are inclusive & accessible w/ support from consultants Shivaangee Agrawal (AD), Katie Fenwick (BSL), Ellie Wallwork (B/VI) & Orange Collective (arts & therapy specialists) and social neuroscientist, Michael Banissy. Feedback from BVI, D/deaf, neurodivergent and hypersensitive at testing.
• Innovate new ways of enabling embodied engagement with galleries, museums & civic spaces. Test with audiences.
• Audiences are co-creators of their experiences, they feel listened to and that their perspectives are valued.
• Attract new programming/presenting partners for future regional/national touring 2026/7 w/in participatory arts orgs, creative health settings & public spaces (e.g Brighton Festival, Hospital Rooms, Rockinghorse Charity, Creative Playground Crawley, Towner Eastbourne)
• Develop a variety of engagement entry points so that we can connect with a wide diversity of people in ways that suit them - creative sessions, sharings, public presentations in different contexts.
• Build new audiences for CSP regionally. Focus on connecting in meaningful ways w/ low socio-economic communities, children & young people (Rockinghorse Charity), people in addiction recovery (Small Performance Adventures), disabled (Figment Arts, Sight Support Worthing, Flarewave Arts).
• Use this project to resist the commodification of public space and create a radically inclusive, caring, imaginative space that improves participants’ sense of wellbeing and need for rest and reflection.
Measurable
• 95% of audience/participant feedback agrees that the activity they engaged in was inclusive & accessible. Implement recommendations from Orange Collective/BVI / D/deaf / Neurodiverse audience feedback & access consultants.
• Work with neuroscientist Michael Banissy to gather qualitative evaluation data from audiences about their sense of relaxation, emotional & physical wellbeing before and after engaging w/ the exhibition; the degree to which they felt like they were co-creators of their experience & that their thoughts were welcomed & valued. Aim for 80% to respond that they feel an improved sense of wellbeing & stable mood; that they felt more creative as a result of their participation.
• Work w/ all collaborators & participants to create high quality, accessible artworks for future distribution.
• LF presented in public spaces, Fest on Fest (South East Dance), The Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Crawley Library during 2026.
• 5+ Future presentation targets: Wellcome Collection’s Reading Room, Brighton Festival, music festivals, hospitals, cultural and civic buildings eg BAC, international sound art festivals as Art Electronica or CTM, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, and festivals focusing on accessibility like Flareware festival in Brighton.
• Work w/ 4 charities and organisations from the disability communities we are targeting to reach them and learn from them: Sight Support Worthing, Figment Arts, Flarewave Arts, Rockinghorse Charity.
• Aim for 85% of audience/participant engagement to be from new to CSP/new to dance audiences.
• Aim to engage 6708 people overall.
Achievable
• Allow sufficient rehearsal time to enable the work developed to the highest quality possible and sufficient time between residencies to integrate feedback from audiences.
• Pace activity evenly across the time frame of the project.
• Strong working relationships already in place w/ access consultants will strengthen the quality of the outcome.
• Testing with relevant disabled audiences and hospital staff and implementing their feedback. Draw on lived experience knowledge of disabled/neurodiverse artists within the team.
• Work closely w/ all community partners to identify target audience groups, deliver appropriate creative activity.
• Variety of presentation contexts enable different ways of engaging.
• Use Creative and Credible Evaluation Framework for arts and health projects to assess the project reach, impact & legacy.
• Sufficient producing time ensure that all activities with organisations, communities & charities can be realised.
Relevant
• Thematic content of activity is current: haptic experiences are universally human experiences, but they are not universally experienced.
• Devastating erosion of infrastructures of care through austerity and commodification of public space and wellness means free activities that promote creativity, reflection, embodiment and slowing down are urgent. The wellness industry is growing rapidly, especially in the UK (5th largest wellness market worldwide £224bn /yr). It is increasingly expensive, exclusive, making it difficult for poorer people to access wellness experiences. This project aims to radically recenter access to wellness by offering all of our activity free of charge.
• Range of presentation contexts offers flexible, responsive touring.
• Ability for each participant to have agency over their experience makes it widely accessible and inclusive.
Timely
• The project will run from January - May 2026.
• Time critical / non-postponable elements including presentation in Fest en Fest, our creative residencies at Sussex University & South East Dance.
• Partner support via South East Dance, Sussex University, Fest en Fest, RockingHorse Charity, Orange Collective, Figment Arts, Sight Support Worthing, Flarewave Arts & Crawley Library are committed.
Identifying & reaching target audiences
• We place inclusive and accessible design in the centre of all our work. Building new partnerships embedded in their local communities means we can realistically reach our target audiences. This project deepens new relationships forged during early concept development phases for we are all memory bodies & targets new partnerships & audiences specifically for Listening Furniture.
• We aim to use this development project to engage new audiences in the design and refinement process of the artwork and build meaningful, lasting relationships. For this phase of Listening Furniture, our strongest focus is on very specific pre-identified community groups to gather their feedback and strengthen the artwork and its accessibility: Sight Support Worthing (B/VI participants); Figment Arts (Learning Disabled & Neurodiverse participants); The Clare Project (Trans, Non-binary Neurodiverse participants); Flarewave Arts (d/Deaf participants); Orange Collective (arts & wellbeing/therapy).
• We are planning future presentations to include installation of Listening Furniture in busy public spaces like shopping centres and hospital foyers as well as in multi-arts venues where the engagement numbers will be high.
• As with previous projects, for future public presentations we plan to use Audience Spectrum to profile target audiences looking at how appropriate our activities are for those groups, demographics and geography. For this development period, a natural target within Audience Spectrum for Fest en Fest would be Experience Seekers and Kaleidoscope Creativity in Crawley.