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Sketch of the Welcome Chorus Credit: Pentagram
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Exhibition
The Welcome Chorus
27 Sep 2019 – 12 Jan 2020
Regular hours
- Friday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Sunday
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Monday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Tuesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 18:00
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 18:00
Cost of entry
FREE
Address
- Rendezvous Margate Kent
- Margate
England - CT9 1HG
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Direct buses to Margate from all surrounding towns in East Kent. Visit Kent County Council's Public Transport website to find your most direct bus route. There you can also download a map of Kent and all available bus routes in the county.
- High speed trains from London St Pancras and Stratford International run every hour and take just 90 minutes. - Mainline trains from London Victoria, Cannon Street, Charing Cross and London Bridge, which take a little longer. Victoria offers a frequent s
Turner Contemporary, in collaboration with Kent Libraries, has commissioned sound artist, designer and electronic musician Yuri Suzuki to make a new artwork as part of Margate NOW.
About
The Welcome Chorus will bring together sound, sculpture and artificial intelligence (AI) in a new interactive outdoor installation. Twelve horns, each representing a district of Kent, will continually sing lyrics which are generated live by a uniquely trained, site-specific piece of AI software. Symbolically, the sculptural forms reference the origin of the word ‘Kent’; thought to derive from the word ‘kanto’, meaning horn or hook.
Through an inclusive democratic process, including workshops at Kent Libraries, people from all over the county have been contributing lyrics reflective of their Kentish experience to the AI data bank. Generated lyrics reflect on the history of Kent, changes to industry and services, the relationship between urban and rural areas and perceptions around journeying and migration. The colours of each horn have been chosen by library staff from different areas in Kent.
Onsite, visitors will be able to speak or sing into a unique ‘conductor’ sculpture, their words will then be heard in the immediate soundscape and will be added to the ongoing machine learning. The AI will continue to evolve throughout the course of the exhibition, resulting in novel and unexpected vocal exchanges.
Open Call: Artist Yuri Suzuki is seeking words, songs and poems about Kent written by YOU.
Your words will help train an artificial intelligence computer programme to sing, and your lyrics will shape this new artwork ‘The Welcome Chorus’. The artwork will bring together sound, sculpture and artificial intelligence into an installation happening alongside the Turner Prize 2019 later this year. The artwork will be situated on Turner Contemporary’s terrace from September 2019 to January 2020.
How to contribute: Share words on social media using #WelcomeChorus or email your contribution to lyrics@turnercontemporary.org
