Upside-down experiment

A visual artist wants volunteers to turn their world upside down.

Carsten Holler is looking for a group of people to wear special goggles, which makes everything appear inverted, for eight days. The volunteers will live together in Manchester and record their experiences before appearing on stage at the city's International Festival.

The group's vision will remain upside down, even after the goggles are removed, for a short period. The volunteers will have assistants who will help them live with inverted vision, but will have to wear the goggles all the time.

Blindfolds will be worn for sleeping, to ensure they are unable to see anything the right way up, which could revert their vision. Activities and entertainment will be scheduled with the goggle-wearing volunteers finding their vision returning to normal as their brains correct the inversion.

They will then round off their experience on stage at Manchester's Opera House as part of Il Tempo Del Postino - Group Show, during the Manchester International Festival.

Holler is best known for his Test Site installation at London's Tate Modern Turbine Hall.

Festival director Alex Poots said: "The essence of art is to provide a novel experience. But what could be more novel than getting the viewer - in this case a volunteer - to view the world from an unexpected angle and to be part of the experience."

The festival runs from 28 June to 15 July.