I’m sure I’m not the only one who will be losing my way to the club – especially if it’s at the Barbican Centre. Jokes aside, if there a better venue for a night out than a brutalist building’s underground car park? I think not.
As part of a multi-sensory exhibition titled Feel the Sound, the London cultural institution will transform into a temporary club. Running from May 22 to August 31, the space will be reworked around the idea that “frequencies, sound, rhythmic patterns and vibrations define everything around us.”
It will be covering several spaces across the iconic brutalist building: the Silk Street entrance, The Curve, public foyers, the Lakeside Terrace and of course, the underground car parks.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Barbican Immersive and Tokyo’s MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives. Following the debut of its London edition, the exhibition will travel internationally, including a term at the MoN Takanawa in Takanawa Gateway City itself in 2026.
The exhibition features 11 commissions and installations – six being exclusive and new commissions that explore the way our bodies and minds experience the sounds and frequencies around our environment.
Dublin rave architecture collective Temporary Pleasure will take over Car Park 5 as part of the exhibition – presenting ‘Joyride,’ a blend of “boy racer” subculture with DIY music communities that use modified car systems as instruments of music.
Domestic Data Streamers will take over Car Park 5 for Forever Frequencies, an installation of AI-powered monoliths and music boxes designed to create future music memories before they exist.
The world’s first professional trans+ vocal collective, Trans Voices, has joined forces with ILĀ and spatial sound art studio MONOM for a unique project in the exhibition. Titled UN/BOUND, the installation is described as ‘a holographic choral exploration’ that invites visitors to contribute their voices to an ever-evolving chorus.
The exhibition also features contributions from artists and collaborators such as Miyu Hosoi, Evan Ifekoya, Boiler Room, MUTEK, and Elsewhere in India’s Murthovic and Thiruda.
For more details and tickets to Feel the Sound, visit the Barbican’s website.