ArtAV are proud to have worked alongside John Akomfrah on his largest and most ambitious exhibition to date; Listening All Night To The Rain at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2024.
The British Pavilion is set in the wonderful grounds of Venice’s Giardini, the heart of the Biennale. And John Akomfrah’s boldest, most ambitious commission to date is there to greet you as soon as you turn up the hill.
Akomfrah has set about changing the experience of the visitors to the Giardini and the British Pavilion from the moment you enter the exhibition space, where a large multi-screen and audio installation sits within the Portico at the front of the building; the usual entrance closed off. Standing proud, the work invites you into the building through the basement and to the second of the spaces, each space curated in a series of movements or Cantos. 8 in total present an overlapping and intermingled sense of individuality and togetherness addressing the burning question which is theme of the whole experience, that of listening.
As you experience the basement area of the British Pavilion as an exhibition space for the first time you begin to feel a foreboding of what lies ahead. 12 portrait screens with 24 individual images and a soundtrack to accompany the imagery from 18 speakers sets the tone for an exhibition that has utilised every possible space within the pavilion. Moving upstairs into a cloud of audio and visual equipment suspended from the ceiling, a visual masterpiece and heady sculptural element to take in the audience hears from various voices as 14 speakers are hidden amongst the old tape players, vinyl records and other items portraying the stories of which Akomfrah is so keen to tell.
Moving into the smaller gallery spaces that wing the main space, each one a different canto and colour and all boasting 6 screens and 12 speakers telling their own story and theme all whilst being part of the main concept. The audience eventually navigates into the main gallery space where they are greeted with an immersive 8 projection wrap-around of new footage, archival work and a sphere of sound created by the very specifically designed mix across 20 speakers. The main gallery space holds you in suspense as you don’t quite know where to look, and with such beautiful and poignant imagery and an immersive soundscape, an architectural seating arrangement in the middle offers you a moment to pause and truly take in the vastness of the exhibition. All in all, Akomfrah has presented his work in the audio visual spectrum by using all of his experience and acumen to deliver 47 screens of imagery and 104 channels of audio; he has listened to his past and invites you to do the same.
ArtAV were invited to work alongside John and his team at the studio as well as the British Council and the many other collaborators who brought the vision to reality. From the very early stages it was clear the ambition of this project was going to need more than what has become over the many years of working with the Akomfrah studio ‘the usual’.
Specialist equipment and technicians were brought in to enable the 47 channels of HD video and 104 channels of audio for the basement gallery, the side galleries and main space to play in sync with one another. Running from a custom built Pixera rack that includes 4 Pixera Duo Media Servers, the challenge was getting the content into the servers at the latest possible moment to give the artistic team the most amount of time with the work. An acoustic specialist was brought in to mix the audio in the spaces which then had to be ingested into the Pixera Servers. A high-speed data connection between the Pixera Servers and the NAS Raid Array allowed ArtAV to really push the envelope and meet the artists requirements when it came to the ingesting of the work.
Having so many speakers in spaces that were within such close proximity to each other; each space with very different sound and a requisite to have each audio channel blend and compliment one another, the requirement for specific speakers and amplifiers was key especially with Artistic team having spent so much effort with the audio mix for the piece overall, we needed to have a technical solution that was able to present in such a way as to meet the expectations of John and his team. Having delivered for John and his team in many previous installations, we were able to offer a Fohhn speaker package that would fill the entire pavilion with the precision German audio company’s familiar sound and the team were very pleased. Combined with the latest LEA Connect series amplifiers, the excellent GUI and ability to connect via the web with remote access meant once installed and with the amps secured in the machine room, the sound and tech team were able to fine tune each speaker and room with ease from within that space.
Within the main space of the pavilion, Gallery 1 has been redesigned with projection at the forefront of thought; the space has been blacked out, painted dark blue and the usual entrance way blocked off. This has allowed for the largest possible space where an immersive wrap around of projection screens have been installed. Everywhere you look within the space you will see one of the eight screens. As is the studios preference with projection, ArtAV were able to offer a matching set of Christie laser projectors. The studio are very appreciative of the colour space offered by the Christie range and feel they best represent the visual aspect of the work. From an installation perspective we enjoy working with the high quality brand, where the user interface and stability are key. With any large scale installation with multiple projectors, the challenge is to match the colours across the units and being able to start with the same model and light engine being a bonus. The colour adjustability across the panel meant we were able to colour match the units before install and then do our final adjustments on site, before John came and added his personal touch and vision.
There are 14 Anthony Gallo Micros in Gallery 4 hidden amongst the audio sculpture, used for their discrete aesthetic and small form factor yet impressive audio output both in volume and tone. Gallery 4 is run from a stand alone audio player in a Utrack24 which was able to offer a quick turnaround for the artists as they mixed the audio on site to ensure each voice was heard.
With over 2 km of cable run in and an install that lasted over 5 weeks, the journey to bring this exhibition together was certainly not without challenges. However, the team worked tirelessly to bring together what is an incredible exhibition both in its scope and delivery.
