Built Stuff

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts

Client:

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead

Project:

’Deep Theatre’ a permanent art installation by:
Julia Manheim,
Hans Peter Kuhn,
Anna Heinrich,
Leon Palmer.

Commissioning Agency- Artpoint Trust, Oxford

Principal Consultant Artsist- Juila Manheim

Date:

1998-2000

Budget:

100,000

Background and Brief

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts is built on chalk and flint farmland. The site was a horseshoe shape, with an old long barn at one end, an eighteenth century farmhouse at the other and an unfinished 1980’s theatre in the middle. A studio theatre, main auditorium, art gallery, offices, restaurant and bar were planned to fit in and around the existing buildings.

Scheme

A group of artists were appointed in the early planning stages and participated in a series of research and discussion sessions with other members of the design team. Following this, they put forward proposals for permanent artworks which would be intergrated into the fabric of the building and would reflect the nature and purpose of the Arts Centre in some way. Having found that they were all interested in the same site, four of the artists decided to work on a single collaborative installation which became ‘Deep Theatre’.

Combining live video images and sound from around the Arts Centre, with fragmented white lines crossing a variety of materials throughout the building, ‘Deep Theatre’ is viewed through a panoramic slot in the lower theatre lobby wall. The images appear as a seamless strip, united by a horizontal white line and projected onto a chalk wall. A mixture of live and recorded sound moves dramatically across the panorama. The installation is ‘live’ whenever the Arts Centre is open.

Deep Theatre
the chalk wall lit by fibre optics.  Photo by Etienne Clement

Deep Theatre
the panoramic viewing slot.  Photo by Etienne Clement

Deep Theatre
panoramic slot, main theatre lobby.  Photo by Etienne Clement