Silver Road and Cafe OTO teamed up to present a new durational performance by Farmers Manual. Taking place in the stunning setting of the Brunel Tunnel Shaft, the performance unfolded over 9 hours in the space, including quadrophonic sound and 360 degree visual installation.

This was only the group’s 4th performance in 15 years – a rare opportunity to catch one of the most important and radical electronic and visual arts groups in Europe – in one of the most interesting spaces in London.

Information on the performance - Space mapping strategies:

"Strategies for the exploration and mapping of space are of high theoretical and practical concern across scientific disciplines and socio-economic activities. The state-of-the-art in research on robotics and autonomous agents has immense potential for application beyond these specific fields.

We propose to design, build, and publicly demonstrate agent-based exploration algorithms transfered into the context of sound, music, and performance with a two-fold aim. One part is to give a minimal functional proof of transfer that can be experienced on an intuitive phenomenal level. This serves the broader intention to contribute to a well-informed and rational public debate and understanding of state-of-the-research and its implications. This appears to be of particular importance, in light of bringing these research results to broaden our understanding of urgent global challenges and paths to sustainable solutions.

The underlying intention is to contribute to a mindset, in which science, hacking, and rationality are natural friends of musical expression and a sensual search for hidden beauty.

Technically, a small population of situation-aware sonic agents is placed in the performance space. The algorithms running inside the agents will be exploring the physical space by probing and searching it for regions of strong or otherwise interesting responses. In the simplest case, this is a /resonance finder/, that searches the frequency-dependent amplitude responses of the room, creating a unique and site-specific sonic signature that is fully grounded in physical reality." - Farmers Manual.