Professor Lise Autogena’s ‘Foghorn Requiem’ receives Arts Council England Award

Foghorn Requiem, a major event created by Sheffield Hallam University Professor Lise Autogena, was the recipient of The Arts Council England Award at this year’s Journal Culture Awards, an annual event which celebrates the most significant contributions to the North East’s cultural landscape in the past year.

On 22 June 2013, ships gathered on the North Sea to perform an ambitious musical score, marking the disappearance of the sound of the foghorn from the UK’s coastal landscape. Foghorn Requiem was performed by three brass bands, 50 ships at sea and the Souter Lighthouse Foghorn. Using custom built technology and controlled and conducted from afar, ships sounded their horns to a score taking into account landscape, atmospheric conditions and the physical distance of sound. The composition, performed live to thousands of audiences on the coastal cliffs, was performed across a space of several miles around Souter Lighthouse; a requiem for the de-commissioning of foghorns, a melancholic and very human sound that connects the land with the sea.

Professor Lise Autogena is an artist and a Professor of Cross-Disciplinary Art at the Cultural Communication and Computing Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University. Find out more about her work here.