Barbican Immersive, the touring exhibition arm of London’s iconic cultural hub The Barbican and a leading developer of immersive exhibitions, has announced details of Feel the Sound – An Exhibition Experience on a Different Frequency. This new multi-sensory show delves into our personal relationships with sound and explores a listening experience that goes beyond the audio.
The exhibition, which launches in May 2025, is co-produced with MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives, in Tokyo, Japan, and includes 11 installations and commissions, with six newly commissioned works.
International tour
The inaugural show will run from 22 May to 31 August and will be hosted in spaces throughout the Barbican Centre. Visitors will encounter the works in the Silk Street entrance, the public foyers, The Curve gallery, the outdoor Lakeside Terrance, and the underground car parks, which will be used for the first time as part of the exhibition experience.
After its London premiere, Feel the Sound will tour internationally, with venues including MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives in Tokyo, where it will show in late 2026.
“Feel the Sound is an invitation to explore the expanded world of sound, how we feel it, see it and the possibilities it provides for us to understand ourselves and the world differently,” says Luke Kemp, head of creative programme, Barbican Immersive.
“Ultimately, we are sonic beings. This is an exciting opportunity to open up new spaces across the Barbican and think about where we encounter sound both in our bodies and throughout the Centre. Feel the Sound joins our roster of experiential exhibitions which launch at the Barbican before touring the world. Previously we’ve focused on AI (AI, More Than Human), the climate emergency (Our Time on Earth), and this time, the rhythm of the planet and our bodies.”
Maholo Uchida, director / crator of MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives, Takanawa Gateway City, Tokyo, says: “MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives, which is scheduled to open in 2026, has been involved in the planning of Feel the Sound as a co-producer from the very beginning, as its first international curatorial project.
“As the world is inundated with visual information, we believe that re-examining sound and music as the most and unified forms of expression with the human body, and reconnecting music and “us” will provide an opportunity to imagine the future narratives of humanity. Everyone who visits the exhibition will experience a new world full of rich sounds and musical power.”
A different frequency
Everything in our environment is defined by frequencies, sound, rhythmic patterns, and vibrations, which shape our perception of the world. Feel the Sound invites us to awaken our senses, embrace our acoustic world, and discover our own unique sounds. Each exhibit will showcase diverse ways to experience sound and explore how, by viewing our body as a listening device, we may shift our perspective and connect with the world on a new level.
Visitors can immerse themselves in an underground car park club, join a digital quantum choir, listen to their inner symphony, hear music without sound, and discover a song for their future selves. With several confirmed projects and more to be announced, Feel the Sound promises to challenge our perception of time and space with works that echo from the past and have an impact on the future.
Exhibits include:
- Sound artist Miyu Hosoi’s Observatory Station. This work gathers and distributes sounds from throughout the Barbican site, combining them with a carefully selected sound collection gathered from field recordists worldwide. Visitors are invited to contribute their voices to the ever-changing chorus in UN/BOUND, a holographic choral exploration from Trans Voices, the first professional trans+ vocal collective, ILĀ, and the spatial sound art company MONOM.
- Joyride by rave architecture collective Temporary Pleasure, which turns The Barbican’s Car Park 5 into a temporary club space where the “boyracer” subculture collides with DIY music communities, and modified car sound systems are reinvented as instruments for music, memory, and connection. This new collaboration with Boiler Room marks 15 years of the iconic broadcasts that redefined underground club culture.
- Forever Frequencies, a collection of monoliths by Domestic Data Streamers exploring the tremendous potential of sound to recall memory, also located in Car Park 5. Using generative AI and music boxes, these structures create future music memories that haven’t yet occurred.
- Kinda Studios and Nexus Studios’ collaboration And Your Inner Symphony. This work combines neuroscience and design to record visitors’ emotional reactions and unveil the unseen ways music influences our inner rhythms.
In addition, the exhibition features both new commissions and adaptations of existing works by innovative artists. Evan Ifekoya’s multisensory installation Resonant Frequencies, inspired by indigenous sound practices, explores the therapeutic effects of music and encourages audiences to reflect on their own internal vibrations.
Murthovic and Thiruda of Elsewhere in India’s Resonance Continuum presents a decolonial perspective of Indian music, combining ancient frequencies with an interactive futuristic, post-cyberpunk dance experience.
Nicole L’Huillier, Sarah Mackenzie, and the MUTEK team have collaborated in the creation of two artist-led lab-style environments that explore ’embodied listening’ and the creative potential of sound. The Lakeside Terrace will feature Heightened Lyric, a series of kites by poet and writer Raymond Antrobus that depict the untapped dimensions and sensations of sound, evoking the spirit of celebrations and festivals.
Summer of sound
Feel the Sound is an element of a schedule of multidisciplinary summer events celebrating sound and music and their impact on our lives.
The programme also features the world premiere of In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, an award-winning virtual reality experience from Darren Emerson and East City Films. The immersive adventure, showing at The Pit from 22 May to 3 August, takes audiences on a nostalgic journey to find an Acid House rave in 1989. The creators aim to create a social experience in which friends share a virtual space and interact together, immersing them in the centre of a music revolution.
The Barbican’s summer season will feature talks, film screenings, free music, club nights, and participatory events aimed at inspiring young audiences and future artists. The complete schedule will be released in March.
Devyani Saltzman, director for arts and participation, Barbican Centre says: “This exhibition marks the continued growth of Barbican Centre as a leading producer and presenter of immersive experiences and is a cornerstone of our Summer season.”
