City of Things was a 60-channel sound installation by Caroline Devine celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ‘new town’ of Milton Keynes. Commissioned by Bletchley Park Codebreaking Centre in partnership with MK Gallery, the Cowper and Newton Museum and The Open University, and set within the Grade II listed shopping centre building, it opens the city up to the ears, providing playful, unexpected encounters with the histories, the people, the secret sounds and the poetics of the city. Devine used field recordings and residents’ voices as the starting point for a composition featuring local birds, bats, mosquitos, buddhists, football fans, choirs and the voice of performance poet Murray Lachlan Young — who voices the 18th-century poet William Cowper and wrote six new poems in response to sites across the city. The sound was embedded into the building itself via resonators on the huge glass windows, speakers hidden in planted areas and the tannoy system, effectively turning the building into a giant instrument.