Feel the Sound @ Barbican
If you can sit on something, sit on it. Definitely touch everything: flip every switch, press every button, step on every pedal. And yes, you should absolutely dance like nobody is watching — except for the thousands of followers of the social media influencers that will be live-streaming right next to you. Feel the Sound isn’t just a clever title, it’s a direct instruction to ensure each and every visitor has the best experience possible at Barbican’s new multi-sensory exhibition, because this isn’t a show for people who sit at concerts and don’t even tap their feet.
Across a sprawling journey of 11 stations, everyone will be presented with a unique soundscape based on how much they engage with the works. Whether that’s singing into microphones to add your voice to a chorus or toggling switches to change white noise frequencies, each opportunity presents new and enticing ways to encounter sound. Like desk fans that play music when you put them in a spotlight. Top tip: Use your smartphone torch to get louder results.
Feeling energetic? Grab a few friends and create an Indian pop masterpiece where digital instruments are triggered by doing Bollywood dance moves. Need a rest? There are multiple benches and a vibrating platform where you can literally feel sound waves coursing through your body. Speaking of slowing down, it’s definitely worth taking your time to read about the works. Years of scientific research and experimentation influenced both the compositions and ways you can interact with them.
This is a super fun show, although not everything is successful. Impatient visitors may get frustrated with stations that have a slow burn effect, and the two subtitled videos felt like unnecessary speed humps delaying your next instant gratification hit. You can also skip the biorhythm scanners scattered along the route. It’s a neat idea, but Your Inner Symphony isn’t much more than confusing data visualisation with the only pay-off being the realisation that you wasted too much time trying to figure it out.
Both the best and worst bits are saved for a part of the Barbican few people ever see: the Car Park. There’s a rebellious mystery in having to navigate your way into the dank and dimly lit space and God help anyone who visits on the same day as a school class trip. Joyride, four salvaged auto wrecks turned into neon lit booming sound systems, is sure to become a daily disco rave. It’s so invigorating that you’ll probably start dancing, but note that you’ll need to save some energy for the ridiculously long and circuitous walk to the exit through an empty space large enough to have housed at least three more soundworks. It’s a weirdly anti-climatic exit that dumps you onto the waterside terrace where there is a poignant final installation that addresses the gaps between the hearing and non-hearing world, but depending on the weather I suspect many visitors might miss it.
Those gripes and quibbles, however, are minor. I so thoroughly enjoyed my time at the press preview that as soon as I finished I went round and did it all again, with every station providing new and different results. Good sounds should make you physically feel something and actively want to move, and by the end my heart rate had accelerated and my toes were happily tapping. Even though I can’t hum back anything that I had heard, I did leave on the same kind of emotional high I get after a rousing concert.
Plan your visit
‘Feel the Sound’ runs until 31 Aug 2025.
Tickets from £20 adult / discounts and concessions available / children under 5 free
Visit barbican.org.uk and follow @barbicancentre on Instagram for more info about the venue.
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