IF YOU LIKE: Sonic Arts Week

Image: Doom Orchestra

From Friday 27th June to Saturday 5th July, the team behind Middlesbrough Art Week and The Auxiliary Project Space (with support from Arts Council England, Tees Valley Combined Authority and Middlesbrough Council) are bringing the noise as Sonic Arts Week returns. Expect experimental sound installations, street interventions, evening gigs, family workshops, and plenty more sonic surprises.

Whether you’re local, curious, or just passing through, Sonic Arts Week invites everyone to follow the sound, get inspired, and immerse themselves in something unforgettable.

IF YOU LIKE…

Sound Installations

Throughout the week, Middlesbrough will come alive with sound as some of the most inventive and boundary-pushing artists fill the town with audio-visual excitement. Be among the first to experience the UK premiere of WETRIP, an immersive fusion of abstract sound and visuals from the visionary Daisy Dickinson & Simon Fisher Turner. Dickinson, known for her mesmerising work with Samaural Kerridge and Snapped Ankles, pairs up with Turner – an acclaimed composer and actor renowned for his unforgettable scores for Derek Jarman’s films, including Caravaggio and Blue.

Meanwhile, dancer-turned-sonic innovator Ashling McCann invites audiences to step into her Sonic Playground, an interactive sound installation set in an empty retail unit at Hillstreet Shopping Centre. Expect unexpected noises, playful experimentation, and a space where movement and sound collide in electrifying ways.

And Joe Browning has been commissioned to take over an ultrasonic speaker installation in the heart of Hillstreet Shopping Centre. Passersby can stand or sit beneath it to activate the sound, immersing themselves in a unique sonic landscape that blends the ambient noise of the space with the aquatic world of the Tees Valley.

Roaming fun

If you don’t want to go to the installations, then no worries, they’ll come to you. Encounter roaming noisemakers who will be ready to surprise you with surreal street performances or mobile sound experiments. Performers you might see wowing unsuspecting passersby are; ‘junkophilic, electro tin can playing, robo dancing ex freelance binmen’ The Junkoactive Wasteman & The Tin Can Twins; apocalyptic audio creators The Doom Orchestra; sound artist and instrument designer Ed Devane and upcycling noisemakers Noisy Toys.

Family fun

Summat For The Bairns invites families to dive into hands-on creativity with a series of free sound workshops. From DIY instrument building to craft zones and microphone mayhem, these sessions are specially designed for young people and their grown-ups to explore, create, and have fun together.

Industrial Coast

And a sound art-based festival in Middlesbrough wouldn’t be complete without an event or three from Teesside’s finest experimental/alternative sound purveyors, Industrial Coast.

They present a series of ticketed, pay as you feel gigs at The Auxiliary and Disgraceland, with performances from ‘ heavy/mutant techno/electronica’ artist JK Flesh (as well as special guest Andrew Nolan and support from Proper Fucked and Chump Wrecker); percussive African and Haitian Vodou music inspired electronic artist Cut Hands (with support from Autumns, Jo Montgomerie and gerg); and Andy Swan’s Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse and Cabaret Voltaire inspired project Tactical Pagan.