The Storm Cone - 2021

Commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection and Metal Southend, The Storm Cone is an immersive artwork by artist Laura Daly, with music composed by Lucy Pankhurst, that considers our intrinsic relationship with the past. At its centre is a journey through music and sound that charts the fading away of a brass band during the interwar years (1918 – 1939). Using new technologies to trace lost bandstands in their final days of mass popularity, we first encounter the band performing as a full ensemble, in 360˚ audio. Breath-taking detail can be heard from every instrument as you move amongst the absent musicians; proximity altering the perception of sounds as Pankhurst’s score builds and then returns to a single note. From the powerful, collective sound of the band, the journey then follows the departed musicians into eight spatial sound works by Daly, where their fragile solo phrases merge and mutate in new environments. History, fiction, artifice and reality combine within this sensory encounter to confront the present with its past.

The Storm Cone Experience is now available to download for

Chalkwell Park, Southend-on-Sea
Chalkwell Ave, Westcliff-on-Sea, Southend-on-Sea, SS0 8NL
&
Peel Park, Salford
The Crescent, Salford, M5 4PD