News

Relocating Reverie.

Reverie is a multi-sensory experience that uses sight, sound, and scent… allowing people a space to reflect on the importance of sustainability while surrounded by nature.

Originally installed at Oliver Spencer in London, Reverie has since spent time within our Western Transit Shed space at Kings Cross, and is now in its third life and residence in Cornwall, as part of the ‘Plan Bee’ exhibition at the Eden Project.

Our Audiovisual experts were intimately involved in the creation of the original exhibition, and again assisted with the new installation, working with artist Wolfgang Buttress to bring his vision to life technically.

As part of the new exhibition, Eden beekeeper Roger Dewhurst used a bee smoker to calm the temperamental Cornish black bees. This meant we, alongside physicist Dr Martin Bencsik, could place accelerometers (vibration sensors) inside the beehives to monitor the bees’ communication calls.

From these recordings, Dr Bencsik’s team discovered some new vibrational sounds and communications from the bees, including: ‘the begging signal’, ‘quacking’, ‘tooting’, ‘whooping’, and even ‘waggle dance’!

Paulie Roche, our Senior Audiovisual Engineer, explains: “We were able to develop a bespoke piece of software in-house that uses these bee signals to conduct a 3D soundscape that can be heard as you sit and immerse yourself within the transquil surrounds of spring flowers and bespoke scent created by Haeckels that provide an element of calm within the space.”

Reverie is on display at the Eden Project, Cornwall until 17 March. To find out more about immersive projects such as this, please get in touch with our Audiovisual team.

 All photographs credit to Sam Scales of Haeckels.