Punchdrunk Associate Artists Stephen Dobbie and Colin Nightingale talk new immersive experience ‘ORIGIN’: “We live in a world where music has become quite disposable”

Following the success of its pilot tryout in 2023, the Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival returns this month with a new showcase featuring over 50 events, celebrating both culture and community through the theme of cultural reforesting. Guillermo Nazara chats with two of the creatives behind this proposal  — to learn more about its concept of a collective deep listening experience and how it merges art with wellness.

How did the idea for the show originate?

The project was a natural progression in our exploration into composing music for one room spatial audio systems.  In 2023, we created a project called The Retiring Room in a hotel bedroom in The Standard, London, that featured a composition we had developed in collaboration with Toby Young, along with lighting design by Ben Donoghue.  It was well received, but it was a solo experience and so had limited reach.  We knew this type of deep listening experience was having a positive impact on the audience, so we were keen to develop a multi-user version that could be tourable.  This was a big factor in developing ORIGIN for us, and Ben and Toby were keen to keep the collaboration going too.  We proposed a creative intention and format to them, and then the four of us worked together to bring it to life.

Art and wellness merged altogether. How does that concept translate into a full theatrical concoction?

Our work is a reaction to the world around us and the starting point is always about the feeling and emotion we are hoping to elicit in our audiences.  We are currently drawn towards making spaces that give a sense of sanctuary and allow audiences to disconnect from the intensity of their day to day digital lives.  To help us achieve this, we have been distilling down the 20+ years of making large-scale multi-sensory immersive work into essential something quite simple that takes people on a journey through an audio experience.  

The piece relies primarily on the use of sound, taking audience into a deep listening experience. How will that journey be like?

The ask for the audience is simple – they are invited to lay or sit and be bathed in sound and light.  During the course of the experience, the music develops around them.  Previous audiences have found themselves ‘transported to another world’; others have found themselves journeying inwards.  A friend, who is an author, rushed home afterwards to write as it had given her the space to unlock a new chapter in her latest book.  

Why sound instead of visuals as your key element?

Sound is a powerful medium to elicit an emotional response but is very often underappreciated.  For example, the sound design of a feature film is often the key component in making the viewer feel something, more so than the actual visuals.  In many ways, with our deep listening projects like ORIGIN, we are trying to find a new context to present a cinematic depth of sound design to an audience.

The show also aims to help audiences to connect deeper with nature. Is the piece a response to a spiritual void in today’s society?

As artists at this moment in time, we definitely feel a need to create space that allows audiences an opportunity to pause.  In the process of disconnecting from the everyday, maybe they then find themselves reconnecting with something deeper inside them.  In the secular society we live in, most people don’t have access to spaces that afford them an opportunity for true reflection, especially with all the distraction of digital and social media.  There is definitely an element in ORIGIN that is attempting to address this and ask a question around the need for access to these types of environments within the community, especially within in an urban setting with a restricted access to nature.

What creative challenges have you found in the development of the piece?

Trusting that it is possible to create a high emotional impact with minimal design intervention within one room.  We both have a long history of working with Punchdrunk in heavily detailed sets across epic, multiple room locations.  With the work we develop as A Right/Left Project, we have really tried to embrace a different path, which is more minimalist.  In trusting that less is more, at least when it comes to the visual component, we hope that it then allows more space for an audience to final a more personal meaning or response to the work we are presenting them.

What, would you say, makes the piece unique from other sensorial experiences?

It’s not totally unique to ORIGIN, but the lack of screens was always important to us.  There is a lot of quite sophisticated technology in use behind the scenes, but we really want the experience to feel analogue to the audience, and we are not really interested in selling the piece off the back of technology.  Tech is just a tool to deliver content and doesn’t feel like it should be at the centre of the artwork we are making, when part of the message is about trying to allow people the space to be more human.

Are there any other highlights in the piece you’d like to flag?

With the kind support of our audio partner D&B audiotechik, we have been able to install a D&B soundscape system into the venue, especially for the project.  This allows us to create a unique spatial mix of the music for the 10-day run.  We live in a world where music has become quite disposable as it’s so readily available to us all through our devices, but the quality of the listening experience has generally declined.  Therefore, it’s exciting to have such a beautifully tuned system to playback the audio during the projects run in Richmond. 

Why come see ‘ORIGIN’?

If you are interested in music, installation art, and the idea of laying down for 30-40mins then this is definitively a project for you.  Equally, if you are feeling overwhelmed by all the daily distractions, visiting it might give you a moment to pause — which, in the words of a past audience member, ‘they hadn’t realised they needed’. 

ORIGIN will run from 13 to 22 June as part of the Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival 2025 at Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College. Tickets are available on the following link.

By Guillermo Nazara