Dates of exhibition – 12th August – 3rd September 2023
Locations, showing simultaneously at: Watergrove Reservoir, Wardle Road, Ramsden Road, Wardle, Greater Manchester, OL12 9EN
Gallery Frank, Ebor Studio, William Street, Littleborough, Lancashire, OL15 8JP
Opening hours – Watergrove Reservoir, 24/7 access Gallery Frank, 11am – 4pm on these dates: 13th, 18th, 19th, 25th, 26th August and 1st, 2nd September or view by appointment by emailing maryanneroyle@eborstudio.co.uk
Private View – 12th August – 4pm start at Watergrove Reservoir Carpark
4 – 5.30pm, Guided walk around the reservoir where visitors can view the artwork in-situ
6 – 8pm, Gallery Frank exhibition and reception
Project overview – Immersive Watergrove is an outdoor, site specific work exploring themes of climate change, water usage, local history and new technology. This is the first collaboration between Cooper and Smith bringing together their separate practices of augmented reality and sound design to create a completely unique, audio-visual experience that will be situated around Watergrove Reservoir over August 2023. This project is also supported by Ebor Studio in Littleborough who will host an in-house exhibition of the work to coincide with the on-location installation. Immersive Watergrove aims to highlight the very visual and real effects of climate change on the area’s water supply inspired by the reappearance of the former community’s remnants during the drought of 2022. By positioning four viewing posts around the reservoir visitors will be invited to observe the site by using an app called Artivive that will trigger augmented reality images and sound highlighting four topics associated with each location.
Site topics and titles:
The Mothers, how people personally engage with the reservoir today.
The Wave Wall, imagines an alternative reality inhabited by previous tenants of the site.
Marled Earth: Climate change impact and water loss.
Hades: the importance of water preservation and how the reservoir serves us.
Sophie Cooper: https://immersivewatergroveblog.wordpress.com/about-sophie-cooper/Babs Smith: https://immersivewatergroveblog.wordpress.com/about-babs-smith/
@babssmithart @sophiecooper_music
Sophie Cooper is a sound artist who Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (hcmf//) refer to as “A crucial member of Yorkshire’s far-reaching experimental music scene”. Sophie’s practice pivots around new presentations of acoustic instrumentation (primarily the trombone) with electronics, challenging conventions around composition, text placement and performance.
In recent years, Sophie has been particularly interested in publicly engaged, site specific, audio work, often in collaboration with visual artists. She has had work exhibited at The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Wordsworth Grasmere Museum, Bury Art Gallery, Hereford Courtyard Art Centre and Gallery Frank as well as music venues including Cafe Oto and hcmf//.
Babs Smith
I work with physical and virtual materials to travel between online and offline processes. I re-present the 2D in 3D and vice versa to extract something that I know exists in an abstract sculptural form. I explore subjects such as movement, light, energy, sound, and time, in the landscape of the Anthropocene. Utilising programs such as Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality, my hand makes visceral direct contact as far as possible with the medium. I respond to the same subject in a traditional medium such as painting, print or sculpture with a ‘what if’ process, jumping in and out of both methods to deepen my understanding. I liken this to our unique combinations of daily digital and IRL immersion, and the extent to which we are unknowingly affected by Artificial Intelligence.
“a wonderful British musician who plays lightly deranged guitar and/or keys while singing like she sees bats everywhere” Bryon Coley, The Wire
