How can sound act as a material force of consequence in the world? 

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre and Perimeter Editions are excited to announce the Ngāmotu launch of Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound, a major new publication developed in connection with our exhibition programme.

Join us for an afternoon of sound, moving image, readings and conversation.

The launch will include a special screening of Len Lye’s Swinging the Lambeth Walk, contributions by Rachel Shearer and Janine Randerson, Roger Horrocks’ reading of Len Lye’s Sense Days, and a reading of Gascia Ouzounian’s Counterlistening.

Senior Curator and Editor Anna Briers and Head of Public Practice and Creative Enquiry Lleah Smith will then be in conversation. Guided by the question What can sound do?, they will connect ideas from across the afternoon and the publication, exploring sound as material, sensation, politics, and a way of knowing.

As the formal programme comes to a close, the cinema will shift into a deep listening experience through an audio playback of Mia Salsjö’s A Score for the Len Lye Centre, performed by musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; we will be carried into an afternoon of drinks, refreshments, conversation and an opportunity to purchase the book.


3:00 – 4:15pm
Welcome and book launch commences 

From 4:15pm
A Score for the Len Lye Centre, drinks, snacks, socialising and book purchases


About the book: 

Edited by Anna Briers, Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound explores sound as a medium, and the ways artists use deep listening — from audible currents and felt vibrations to sirens and noise — as a means of collective attunement, knowledge building and engaging critically with a planet in crisis. 

Catalysed by the two-part exhibition presented for the tenth anniversary of the Len Lye Centre, the publication places Len Lye in conversation with major contemporary artists from Aotearoa and abroad, pairing essays and expanded texts from leading scholars with intriguing works from the sonic field.    

Across sound installation, kinetic sculpture, film, field recording, graphic scores, visual music, choreography and musical composition, the book asks urgent and imaginative questions: 

Can architecture be a musical score? Can the body be an instrument? Can colour be heard? What does a healthy ecosystem sound like? What are the techno-politics of machine listening? And what kinds of sirens and warnings are needed to survive the future? 

The publication includes access to an audio recording of Mia Salsjö’s A Score for the Len Lye Centre, performed by musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. 

Featuring work by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Roy de Maistre, Andrew Faleatua, Oskar Fischinger, Simon Ingram, YoungEun Kim, Yona Lee, Len Lye, Machine Listening, Ross Manning, Yuko Mohri, Mel O’Callaghan, Mia Salsjö + the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Aura Satz, David Sequeira, Rachel Shearer and Weather Cry. 

With texts by Anna Briers, Len Lye, Machine Listening, Gascia Ouzounian, Aura Satz, Rachel Shearer and Janine Randerson, Lleah Smith and Mark Peter Wright. 

Following its inaugural release at the New York Art Book Fair from 24 September, Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound will be available through Perimeter Books and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery shop.

Pre-order the book here.