This year’s Cityread features a digital storytelling installation, with sound and stories provided by Audible in The Gallery at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, a gallery curated and managed by Futurecity. The installation will allow visitors to immerse themselves in Ten Days, the gripping political thriller, by listening to audio excerpts of key moments from the book, brought to life by narrator Joe Jameson. “Stories from the City” opens at Foyles on 1 April and runs till 8 May. There will also be smaller mobile installations which will tour London’s libraries.
“Stories from the City” sees the creation of a ‘police control centre’ within The Gallery at Foyles bookshop’s central London gallery space where visitors can interact with extracts taken from the first 72 hours of the Ten Days audiobook. Content is ‘triggered’ by placing evidence relating to each scene onto a control desk panel, generating audio and visual cues. A second area of the installation, modelled in part on the wooden hoardings that covered up broken shop windows in the 2011 London riots, will encourage visitors to the gallery to contribute their own responses to the book and its themes.
Portable versions of the installation dubbed ‘evidence booths’ – complete with audio content triggered by ‘evidence’ from the book – will tour around London libraries throughout the duration of the campaign, with week-long residencies planned in twelve locations.
The installation has been produced in partnership with Bristol-based Stand+Stare and creative consultant Jon Slack.