In curating the exhibition, which runs until 15 January 2012, Martin Myrone and Anna Austen wanted to recreate the impact these paintings originally had when they toured Britain continuously in front of paying audiences in the mid-19th century. In more recent times, Martin's vivid landscapes have provided the inspiration for major movies, science fiction video games, manga comics and album art.
"These paintings were the blockbusters of their time," says Dan Crompton, the Tate's audio visual service manager, who oversaw the technical installation.
One of John Martin's major projects was the completion of a triptych of paintings on the theme of the end of the world (shown in Room 5 of the exhibition - entitled The Great Day of his Wrath, The Last Judgement and The Plains of Heaven - and it is for this grand theatre-style finale that an extra dimension has been created in the form of an immersive 11-minute-long son et lumière, run on a show loop, using 16 JBL Control 1 loudspeakers and three digital projectors.
Crompton confirms that the loudspeakers were selected for their sonic qualities and ability to reproduce a range of sound sources, including effects, music, narrative and historical documentation taken from original scripts, in 16-channel surround, with each speaker channel individually mixed.
"We wanted discreet multiple speakers around the space to fly the sound around the room - and although we were on a tight budget we didn't go for the cheapest option. We knew from experience that the Control 1's were good speakers but just as importantly we know the characteristics of the box. They are punchy and able to overcome the main challenges of intelligibility and clarity by taming the high reverberation time of the room."
The show is triggered from a Mac running QLab multimedia playback software and the JBL Control 1s are sensitively wall-mounted behind the audience and low down near the pictures themselves, with a rubber buffer behind the mount offering additional protection.
"The sound is the essence of the piece," declares Dan Crompton. "The combination of sound effects and music are carefully matched around the 16 channel immersive space. We wanted to balance the powerful imagery with equally powerful audio somehow and JBL was a major part of the inspiration."
(Jim Evans)
