A NEW interactive art trail has launched in the heart of York city centre.
Starting from today (November 4), three brand-new public art installations have been installed in York city centre as part of Aesthetica Film Festival’s Radical Listening immersive media arts trail.
The trail – which is spread across three different sites and will run until Sunday (November 8) – was created in partnership with Audible and hopes to answer the question of what might happen when media art is encountered rather than sought out.
It also hopes to invite people to pause and rediscover the power of attention in everyday life.
The first location in King’s Square is created by the Being Now Here is named Henge: Echoes Through Time (2026) and hopes to take audiences on a ‘cinematic journey through time’ where it wants to evoke different periods and experiences of the city. From the Minster’s hawks and bells to iron works and fires of times gone by.
It is made up of several wire boxes with lights inside and will evolve over the course of the week, with the description stating that ‘the composition slowly reveals itself through audience participation’.
In Exhibition Square, a piece by Squidsoup called The Sound of Coming Back to Life (2026) took inspiration from artist Anthony Rowe suffering a heart attack last year when he was unresponsive with no heartbeat for several minutes.
The description reads: “He has a vivid and clear recollection of returning to consciousness, which he captures in this sound recording, made a few weeks later using an electric upright bass.
“The piece reflects both the physical and emotional responses Rowe went through – including confusion, anger, fear, vulnerability – as the impact of what happened gradually sinks in.
“Now, for the first time, Squidsoup combines this audio with their renowned volumetric visual system.”
A third sculpture, Fruere Silentio, an inflatable structure reaching approximately the height of the building itself, is located at York Theatre Royal.
Created by environmental artist Steve Messam, it hopes to make the familiar building feel ‘unfamilar’ with a four-minute vocal score recorded across all 20 remaining medieval churches within York’s city walls, alongside York Minster, incorporating voices, footsteps, weather, traffic and other incidental sounds.
Speaking to Aesthetica, Steve said: “The physical scale is enormous, but the experience is intimate.”
Share