Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival starts with silence

Nov 23 2009 by Katie Grant, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival starts with silence

WHAT kicked off Huddersfield’s contemporary music festival?

A chamber choir perhaps, an orchestra or a piano solo?

None of the above.

On Friday the world famous music festival began with silence.

Tim Head’s exhibition Raw Materials at Huddersfield Art Gallery brings together a series of artworks exploring the digital medium.

The work includes a colourful image projected on the rear wall exterior of the art gallery which is switched on at around 4pm when it gets dark.

Tim, pictured inset, has been planning the projection and exhibition for three years with a series of trips to Yorkshire from London to view the gallery space.

He told the Examiner: “I’ve no idea of how the people of the town will react to it.

“I’m sure a lot of people will have the chance to come across the projection as they pass by.”

He wants the viewer to experience and interpret the art in their own way, adding: “The viewer is confronted directly with the medium itself.

“There are no images, scenarios, back-stories – no distractions.

“The choices of how to relate to these works are not predetermined and place us in a more direct physical and reflexive relationship with the material substance of our dominant technologies.”