Executive Summary

Ergo Sum is a multi-sensory event by Sleight of Hand Theatre, combining live performance with 3D immersive sound technology, exploring the kaleidoscopic nature of human experience. The production is being developed in London (funded by Arts Council England) in collaboration with artists including award-winning writer Hattie Naylor and binaural sound design expert Ruth Farrar, researchers at the Institute of Neurology (UCL) and Institute of Psychiatry (KCL), and charities including the National Autistic Society, Mind, Rethink, and TLC Care.

This project application is to ask for funding to bring Ergo Sum to Warwick, making the piece accessible for Warwick students, with the particular aim of bringing together students from the medical school and the Theatre Studies department.

The show involves stepping into an interactive theatrical "sound art" experience creating through binaural sound technology which manipulates the hearer into thinking they are hearing live, three-dimensional sounds. A trilogy of short pieces exploring schizophrenia, autism and stroke will not only immerse audience members in the sensations related to particular neurological disorders, but will allow them to experience different personal journeys, connecting emotively through a combination of soundscape and live performance.

This show runs for about 1 hour and can accommodate 20 audience members; we would like to give 4 showings of it at Warwick in a day-long event, accompanied with post-show talks, discussion groups and interactive workshop sessions. Staff from Theatre Studies and the Medical School will be invited to take part, leaving enough space for up to 60 students to attend.

The project will leave a legacy in the form of film footage and an online article/report made available to all Warwick students and on social media. We hope that it will also inspire longerterm connections between Theatre Studies creatives and science students from the Medical School. To encourage this, we will set up a project which will run after the event: inviting those students who attended to create a creative piece of work about a chosen perspective based on a neurological or psychological disorder. The work could be a short video, performance, installation, artwork or written piece. The groups will have to involve collaboration between students from each department and the work will be shared on campus.