The apocalyptic early Victorian art of John Martin - depicting biblical catastrophes in vast panoramas - has been dramatically brought to life at Tate Britain with help from JBL Control 1 loudspeakers.
In curating the exhibition, which runs until January 15, 2012, Martin Myrone and Anna Austen wanted to recreate the impact the paintings originally had when they toured Britain continuously in front of paying audiences in the mid-19th century.
"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 Martin's major projects was the completion of a triptych of paintings on the theme of the end of the world.
Entitled 'The Great Day of his Wrath', 'The Last Judgement' and 'The Plains of Heaven', 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.
This uses 16 JBL Control 1 loudspeakers and three digital projectors, with the loudspeakers being 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.
The show is triggered from a Mac running QLab multimedia playback software. The JBL Control 1s are wall-mounted behind the audience and low down near the pictures themselves, with a rubber buffer behind the mount offering additional protection.
All Harman Professional products - of which JBL Professional is one - are distributed in the UK and Eire by Sound Technology Ltd.
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