Choreographing the Invisible
Shifting Objects, Shifting Selves
What happens when you approach creativity not through ideas or words, but through space and presence? When you shift the focus from concept to contact, from planning to moving?
Last month I took part in a MaPl (Make Play) training workshop at the University of Glasgow that invited exactly that. Rooted in the lens of architecture and spatial design, the MAPL methodology offers a different perspective—one that sees creativity not as a mental exercise, but as something that begins in the body, in movement, in how we interact with objects and with each other.
The workshop was designed to share the principles of MAPL’s facilitation method using a bespoke play kit, alongside findings from their ongoing research into play and creativity. It was kindly funded by the Creative Launch initiative at the University of Glasgow and match-funded by Glasgow’s Film and Television Department, as well as an AHRC Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Kent.
Led by Ambrose Gillick and Dieter Declercq, with support from a cross-disciplinary team, the sessions blended theory, physical engagement and collaborative experimentation.
As someone who works with sound and story, I spend a lot of time shaping emotion. Listening, tuning in, responding. But this experience flipped the usual process. Instead of thinking my way in, I had to move. Build without a plan. Play with no obvious goal. And that changed everything.
Designing a game with no rules
One of the tasks was to create a game using the MAPL kit. The kit is beautifully simple. Wooden boards, connectors, blocks and strips. No instructions. Our group decided to keep it that way.
We created something loose and playful, with only one rule. No speaking.
That meant everything had to happen in silence. Each player would invent their own moves, and others would respond. One person might build something with a certain rhythm or gesture. Another might copy it, or subvert it. Over time, a shared logic began to form. The structure grew from the interactions.
Because no one could talk, the sound of the materials became very present. The clack of wood, the scrape of connectors, the thump of pieces being placed. Without realising it, we’d built a kind of group improvisation. People started tapping in rhythm. There was a natural call and response. Someone added a pattern. Others picked it up. We were composing something together without any discussion.
It was one of the most musical things I’ve experienced in a long time.
No one had said anything about sound. But there it was. Emerging from the quiet.
Movement changes everything
That moment stayed with me. When you shift something in space, you shift something inside. The simple act of moving, placing, building together opened up a very different kind of awareness.
This wasn’t about solving a problem or achieving a result. It was about listening with your body. Responding to others without analysing it. The shape of the interaction became the point.
That’s what play does. It shakes things loose. It lets new ideas in. It gives you access to thoughts you didn’t know you had. Not by forcing anything. Just by starting.
Connection through doing
What surprised me most was how quickly a sense of trust and collaboration emerged. Without defined roles, people dropped into the work. No one was performing. We weren’t trying to impress or explain. The play shaped itself.
Someone in the room said you often need a third person to validate space. I think that’s true for meaning too. We only begin to understand something once we see it reflected back through others. MAPL gave space for that kind of reflection. Not through talk, but through gesture, rhythm, instinct.
This reminded me of composing. The early phases. When things are raw and sketchy and incomplete. When you’re not trying to fix anything yet. You’re just following what feels alive.
Structure and freedom
The MAPL team shared ideas from Roger Caillois, who mapped different kinds of play. Competition, chance, vertigo and mimicry. Each sits somewhere along a spectrum from loose improvisation to rule-bound structure.
Most creative practices move between those poles. We need structure. But we also need permission to break it.
MAPL gave us that permission. It was a space where the process mattered more than the outcome. Where freedom wasn’t chaos, but curiosity. That felt rare. And it reminded me that sometimes the best ideas come from just letting go of the plan.
The politics of play
Play can be light, but it’s never neutral. As soon as people begin pretending, moving, improvising, culture comes into it. We bring our stories with us. Our identities. Our assumptions. Who gets to lead. Who follows. Who gets to be heard.
The MAPL sessions encouraged us to notice this. Not with heaviness, but with care. It raised questions about justice, access, recognition. Who is invited to play. Who feels safe enough to explore. Whose rules we’re following, even unconsciously.
For me, this connected back to sound. Every space has its own acoustics. Every body has its own tone. Listening is not just technical. It’s social. It’s emotional. It’s political too.
An idea started to form
Driving home after the workshop, I kept returning to that unscripted moment when the game turned musical. The rhythm of the group. The way silence brought the sound to the surface. And an idea started forming.
What if music wasn’t something you just listened to?
What if it was something you could walk through?
Music You Can Walk Through
A new way of hearing, feeling and shaping sound
The installation begins with a wall.
A clean, uniform grid made of identical blocks. Each block is a speaker. Together, they form a surface, like bricks stacked into place. The sound is contained, held in balance.
The audience is invited to approach. To play. To move the bricks.
Each speaker holds a strand of the music—texture, rhythm, melody, pulse. When someone picks up a block and moves it, the sound moves with it. The space begins to change. The room starts to respond.
A drone placed on the floor reshapes the low end. A bell tone lifted to eye level draws the ear upward. Harmonies stretch and compress. Rhythms gather in corners or dissolve into distance. People start to explore. New patterns emerge.
What began as a wall becomes a field of sound in motion.
Every movement shifts the composition. Blocks can be carried, rotated, stacked, scattered. The physical arrangement becomes part of the music. Each decision, each gesture, leaves an audible trace.
The piece unfolds through presence and interaction. Sound fills the room in layers, shaped by the choices of those within it. There’s no fixed path. No single perspective. Everyone creates a different mix as they move.
It becomes a shared composition. A tactile, sonic landscape built in real time. Something collaborative. Something felt.
The installation invites a slower kind of attention. Listening through movement. Thinking through placement. Sound becomes something to walk with. Something to hold. Something to shape.
The MAPL workshop reminded me that creativity often begins before we know what we’re making. That interaction can be composition. That silence can carry rhythm. That play, when taken seriously, is one of the most generous tools we have.
Music You Can Walk Through is a way of continuing that. Letting sound become something people do together. Letting movement be part of the score. Letting rooms breathe music.
This reminds me of improvisatory dance & music; things that I was involved in in the 60s. It was an exciting time, no rules, no leaders, just listening, observing and responding.
Music you can Walk Through is such a nice idea Giles! I love the idea of making a new experience with sound that way.. I wonder if there could be interactions between the speakers themselves that are triggered by their proximity or distance from each other! New melody lines being played from speakers that are alone and further from the rest of the speakers. Lots of ideas to play with there!