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.”

The London-based artist is not concerned with the sounds of digital products or the images they produce.

Instead he wants to strip back the digital image to its raw form – the millions of pixels and colours that lie beneath.

He concentrates on the digitalisation of art and in turn he sees this as reflecting the increasing digitalisation of contemporary music.

The artist added: “I can see there’s a lot of links with the way composers make music and how these images are produced.

“A lot of the younger generation are involved in producing sound digitally.”

The exhibition inside, curated by Sotiris Kyriacou, includes a series of drawings by Head and an indoor projection. It will run until January 9.

Heckmondwike Grammar schoolboy Kevin Chang thought the outside projection was “cool”.

He said he wasn’t planning on going to any of the events during the music festival but had noticed the “colourful” work as he waited for a friend and thought it was a good idea. Kieron Winterson, from Holmfirth, was less impressed.

He said: “Had it done more than this it may have been more interesting – but it doesn’t look like it’s going to do much else.”