Water and horn make forest music

Jem Finer is interested in "more physical ways of making art"

An award-winning music and art installation that plays the sound of dripping water through a gramophone horn is on display in a Kent forest.

Jem Finer, an ex-member of The Pogues, won £50,000 to construct "Score for a Hole in the Ground" when he was given the PRS Foundation's New Music Award.

The 7m-high (23ft) steel horn at King's Wood rises from a shaft where water drips onto steel discs and blades.

People can see the "post-digital work" at the wood near Challock from Sunday.

Mr Finer has described it as "both music and an integrated part of the landscape and the forces that operate on it and in it".

He won the New Music Award in July last year, and has spent the intervening period finding a suitable location and then actually making "Score for a Hole in the Ground".

Japanese inspiration

The shaft, or "acoustic chamber", was dug and then reinforced with concrete rings.

It is topped with a dew pond which was lined with clay.

"Water's dripping [from the pond] and striking an array of percussive instruments," said Mr Finer.

His work was inspired by suikinkutsu - Japanese garden ornaments where water drips through a hole in an upturned pot and makes a ringing sound inside.

Charlotte Ray, from the PRS Foundation, said the King's Wood installation made "a special sound because it uses natural forces as the performers in this piece".

"As the seasons progress then it's always going to be different," she added.