Enter the world of Ten Days by Gillian Slovo.

 
“Stories from the Streets” is the central digital storytelling strand of Cityread London 2016 that will be launched on 1 April 2016.

This unique installation will see the creation of a ‘police control centre’ within Foyles bookshop’s central London gallery space, where visitors can interact with extracts taken from the first 72 hours of the Ten Days audiobook. Content will be ‘triggered’ by placing evidence relating to each scene onto a control desk panel, promoting audio and visual cues. A second area of the installation, modelled in part on the wooden hoardings that covered up broken shop windows in the 2011 London riots, will encourage messages from visitors to the gallery to contribute their own responses to the book and its themes, in what we hope will become a positive talking point about the value of fostering dialogue between communities.

Contributions from visitors will also feed into a ‘digital community hub’ on the Cityread website, launching 8 April. User-generated content via social media will merge with messages from supporters of the campaign to create an interactive ‘storyboard’ that will be the centre point of conversations around Cityread London. Audiences will be drawn into the scenarios faced by the book’s main characters, and ask how they would respond as the increasingly fraught events of the story unfold.

Portable versions of the installation dubbed ‘evidence booths’ – complete with audio content triggered by ‘evidence’ from the book - will tour around London libraries throughout the duration of the campaign, with week-long residencies planned in twelve locations.

The installation has been produced in partnership with Bristol-based Stand + Stare and creative director Jon Slack. Stand + Stare is the artistic collaboration of brother and sister Barney Heywood and Lucy Telling. From their Bristol studio, they create interactive exhibitions, installations and apps for a range of settings. They often incorporate tangible, real things, such as objects you can handle or books you flick through, which are enhanced through the use of digital technology. Clients include Carnegie Hall, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Museum of Science & Industry and Random House.