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Man jumping in the air about to dunk a basketball into the net, on the right are two men one of which is holding up a microphone recording the sounds
Ready To Drop logo

20 Aug 2021 - 26 Aug 2021

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Slow shutter speed photo of the brighton beach basketball court at night
Court at night. Ready to Drop, conceived and created by Orlando Gough and John Del' Nero, Brighton Basketball Court, August 2021. Photo by Matthew Andrews

A sound installation at Brighton Basketball Court

Ready to Drop played on loop on the empty court from 22:00 – 10:00 for seven nights, filling the air with ghostly echoes of the previous day.

Conceived and created by Orlando Gough and John Del ‘Nero

Featuring the voices of Rebecca Askew and Phil Minton

Sound Engineering by Sebastian Frost 

Ready to Drop film - Making the soundscape

Watch to find out more about the making of Ready to Drop, a sound installation for Brighton Beach by Orlando Gough and John Del’Nero. 

Artists

John Del’Nero

Lead Creative | View Bio

John Del’Nero

Lead Creative

UK

John Del’ Nero began his career in London’s West End on productions such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Billy Liar and Jeeves. He designed the sound for the original Rocky Horror Show and has been Sound Designer for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo for the past 20 years. He has worked for Royal Families in the UK and abroad including Jordan and Saudi Arabia. John has previously worked with Artichoke on Hilary Westlake’s Dining with Alice and Peace Camp.

Website Link

Orlando Gough

Lead Creative | View Bio

Orlando Gough

Lead Creative

Orlando Gough is a composer (and sometimes lyricist, librettist, music director, MC, recording engineer, cookery writer), who writes operas, choral music, music-theatre, music for dance and theatre, and creates large-scale site-specific work.

 

Website Link
Court in the late afternoon sun
Ready to Drop, conceived and created by Orlando Gough and John Del' Nero, Brighton Basketball Court, August 2021. Photo by Matthew Andrews.

Designed for casual encounters and quiet engagement, Ready to Drop melds the urban bustle with the wash of nature, gently displacing the sounds of the night with echoes of the day

Ready to Drop ran from after dark until mid-morning, surprising local night owls and the early swim and breakfast crowd alongside sound art aficionados and the casual passers-by. Inspired by the thousand twangling instruments that hummed around Caliban’s ears in The Tempest, the piece captures the daytime bustle of Brighton Beach basketball court. 

Whilst walking together through Gough’s hometown last year, the two were struck by the energy, joy, competition, and communication of the court and its users, from basketball players to roller skaters.  Ready to Drop is their response to this poetry in sound, field recordings of the collective sounds made by people at play on the basketball court and those of the adjacent dingy stand, the wind and the sea, combined with original composition. 

You can find out more about Ready to Drop and listen to interviews with the creatives and participants via the Artichoke guide on the Bloomberg Connects app. 

Scroll down to listen to the special stereo edition of the soundscape in full. 

Listen to the full stereo version of the soundscape

It’s 5am. Brighton beach. You are sitting on a low wall beside the basketball court. Dawn approaches. During the day this place is buzzing with action. Now, there is no one else around except the odd seagull. And this is what you hear… 
John Del' Nero and Mike Furness recording dinghies.
John Del' Nero and Mike Furness recording dinghies. Ready to Drop, conceived and created by Orlando Gough and John Del ‘Nero, Brighton Basketball Court, August 2021. Photo by Matthew Andrews

Artichoke is always about the live experience and we want to show how outdoor arts can revive and renew after a year in which we pined for social interaction and life.

~ Helen Marriage, Director of Artichoke ~

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