The Spirits of Sound at the Teenage Fair brings together the graphic music score and abstract music animation. Graphic scores are an approach to writing music developed by avant-garde classical and jazz composers, such as John Cage, Anthony Braxton and Cornelius Cardew, as a way of expressing ideas that could not be conveyed in conventional music notation. They are often used as a way of encouraging musicians to perform in a more improvisational manner, or allowing ideas for improvised music to be defined without completely restricting the performance. Abstract music animations have been a core part of the development of animation from early pioneers, such as Hans Richter and Oscar Fischinger, through to experiments with using technology to create images, as in the work of Mary Ellen Bute and John Whitney. Whilst some were created as visualisations of existing music, and can be seen as precursors to modern music videos and media player visuals, others were a self-contained form of audio-visual composition in their own right, with animators such as Norman McLaren applying visual animation techniques to the creation and composition of sound works.

There is no one way of performing The Spirits of Sound at the Teenage Fair. It offers a set of components which can be combined and composed into many variations. These components are both musical and visual. A key part of the experience of the work lies in exploring and experimenting with these different combinations for yourself.