God, I’m old. On my first visit to The Lowry in Salford, the paint was still wet, the painters were washing their brushes in the toilet sinks and the seat numbers were written in chalk. Now the venue is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
There are a number of celebratory events planned to commemorate the anniversary, the first being LOWRY 360, an immersive display of L S Lowry’s Going to the Match. Have heard of, but never experienced, immersive art viewings so have no idea how LOWRY 360 compares, but the immediate description which comes to mind is both ‘cinematic’ and ‘live’. Like an IMAX screening where the size of the screen fills the viewer’s entire vision and fools the brain into thinking you are really there.
However, one way in which LOWRY 360 differs from other immersive art viewings is that it is free to visit and is to become a permanent part of the venue’s galleries. Walk-ins may be accepted, but it is more sensible to book in advance.
The presentation is created in collaboration with Barcelona’s renowned Immersive studio, Layers of Reality. The intention is to surround visitors by a creative exploration, in super-high resolution, of Lowry’s painting celebrating the excitement, anticipation and ritual of going to a football match on a Saturday afternoon. There is also the opportunity to view the original painting in The Lowry’s galleries.
The football match in question was played at Burnden Park, home of Bolton Wanderers. Bolton-born actor, narrator, writer and comedian Sophie Willan provides the voiceover for LOWRY 360. There is a sense of ‘Sophie’s coming home’ as she started her career on The Lowry’s Artist Development Programme. The warm voiceover neatly drip-feeds facts—Lowry scratched the price of match tickets into the painting—and helps build the atmosphere of the event. Sound effects—from factory whistles to the excited chatter of an expectant crowd—also help evoke the experience of getting out of work and having fun.
The event is staged in a relatively modest room with, initially, Lowry’s signature on the walls. The opening of the film is giddy, even breathtaking. Enlarged parts of the artwork—chimneys and rooftops—rush at, and around, the viewer. The immersion is total—underfoot, the ground becomes marked out like a football pitch. Matchstick figures from the painting walk around the viewer.
LOWRY 360 offers a ‘greatest hits’ of images from the artist’s paintings. The Man lying on a wall makes an appearance, and residents make their weary way to the local factory or shop at Lowry’s Market Scene Northern Town. You’ll be fascinated to learn I used to load stalls at The Flat Iron Market, sketched by Lowry, to pay for my comics.
LOWRY 360 is something of a contradiction: a high-tech recreation of a time gone by. Burnden Park, featured in the painting, does not exist anymore, and social rituals like a Saturday afternoon match are becoming scarcer as timings of games are determined by television broadcasters and sponsors. Not only are the venues vanishing, so too is the sense of community which they generate. An MP has claimed top-flight football matches are often too expensive for working class supporters to attend. Perhaps chanting from the terraces will be replaced by a chorus of the "Eton Boating Song", while the underclass are left to try to capture some excitement via a screen viewing.
LOWRY 360 offers different things depending upon the generation of the viewer. For older people, it is a delightful, nostalgic exhibit delivered in a vibrant, exciting manner, while younger people might find it to be of historical significance, recording social events they can never experience. It does, however, draw in the viewer so, regardless of age group, viewers will not find LOWRY 360 to be a cold museum exhibit to be regarded dispassionately. The exhilarating rush of being dropped in the middle of a communal celebration is stirring and demands more than one visit—just as well it is free.