I have recorded sound and video at a new location in Dalston, East London. The marketplace on Ridley Road becomes deserted after closing, but with the skeletons of the stalls and remnants of activity left behind. This long exposure of a secluded corner of the market reveals the subtle movement of plastic sheeting and empty ropes which move in the breeze blowing through the exposed structures. The remnants and movement combined with the apparent desertion create a similar eerie aesthetic to that achieved by Fiennes. Revealed by a lack of people and merchandise, the makeshift structures also divulge the relative poverty which surrounds this area.
One stall in particular has an intriguing method of display, using ropes hanging from the structure above to suspend clothing on coat hangers and bust forms. The majority of them are suspended at the same height, creating a recognisable 'shop' format with aisle spaces in between, but due to their suspension the items move unexpectedly in the breeze.
At night, the stall spaces become stranger still - empty ropes hanging like nooses. Without the weight of the products they move even more and often blend into the darkness until they catch the breeze or brush against you as you walk through.
In "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow", Fiennes documents the work of Anselm Kiefer at his site in rural France. The structures she shows have an apocalyptic air and her sensitive filming techniques enhance this further. The opening sequence builds tension as it pans across the transformed, yet seemingly abandoned landscape before revealing sudden movement - and the reality, that someone is still there. There is a similar moment towards the end when she pans across the stillness again, until at the far left of the shot, smoke is seen blowing into the frame. The source of this smoke remains unseen but it suggests again that there is a presence.
Her film is beautiful to watch - clever, well framed and sensitive to the architecture within it - and if you have an interest in Kiefer's work too, all the better.
Following on from the films of the underground platform, I am continuing the method of juxtaposing video and sound recordings taken in the same space at different times. The most successful so far has been on location at Columbia Road - where, on a Sunday morning, this otherwise quiet street is transformed for the weekly Flower Market. My experimental film involves the camera moving through the empty street on a weekday afternoon, juxtaposed with sound recorded whilst walking the same route through the marketplace. Different voices and calls of the street vendors zone in and out as the recoring device passes through, meanwhile the video reveals only stillness.
I listened to Wright's sound piece "A Quiet Reverie", performed live at the Swiss Church in Covent Garden. The piece is a mix of sound recordings from the sites of four derelict abbeys in North Yorkshire. The acoustic qualities of the ruined architecture are revealed through this recording of the structure's interaction with the wind, rain and wildlife. Wright made a point of playing the sounds from a concealed platform above the audience - encouraging focus upon the sound alone and therefore enhancing the role of the visual imagination. It was beautiful to listen to, and also a refreshing change to engage only my hearing. I made notes whilst listening to the piece and was amazed by the amount of images and assumptions I had made about the structure. Visit Mark Peter Wright's web page
Inspired by the work of Fontana, I am beginning to experiment with sound as a means of creating affectivity in architectural space. Sound by its very nature implies movement and hearing it in contradiction to a still visual scene can be poignant. As mentioned in relation to my prior film with moving shadows, such juxtapositions can play on our innate tendancy to recognise 'living' things.
In this film of the empty platform at Tufnell Park tube station I juxtaposed visual film which combined moving and static images with the sound of a train passing through. I was able to capture subtle changes to the space and movement caused by air flow. At points it is unclear whether the image is video or still, which I feel adds to the effect.
The camera was static, but film was taken from two different viewpoints and cut together. I was led by the soundtrack and cut the video at points which corresponded to sharp noises in the audio. This, along with the static viewpoints and grayscale tone aims to give the impression that the space is being viewed remotely and could be completely deserted. I think this absence of people is the key to the film's affecttvity - the setting of an underground station is expected to be full of people. Furthermore, the prominence of the sound of machinery indicates the presence of human intention/operation and highlights the lack of human noises which usually mask it.
These images were taken at The Streetlife Museum in Hull. The museum uses a sequence of scenes which remain eerily still, as the voices of the inhabitants and sounds of activity fill the space. Obviously it's strange because what you are seeing and what you are hearing don't match up, but I think there's more to it than that. This eerie juxtaposition is something I'd like to investigate further.
At the end of the Second World War, inhabitants of the Cabinet War Rooms abandoned this vast underground space and left all equipment and everyday objects behind. The museum attempts to accentuate the notion of the space being frozen in time. Whilst sounds of footsteps, typewriters, sirens and sometimes voices play, the wax works remain paused. When the voices are heard and the waxwork is visible it somehow doesn't work, it's not believable. But when the figures are absent it seems more poignant - therefore allowing the viewer's imagination to add to the scene is perhaps more powerful. Sounds of the typewriters are also unsettling, as an indirect suggestion of human presence.
Fontana's poignant injection of audio plays the sound of a busy railway station into the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof - a station destroyed during World War 2. The intervention seems to reconstruct the lost architecture, drawing attention to the reason behind its loss.
Existing materials used on the site reflect sections of architecture, sometimes multiplying them many times over. The positioning of my proposed installation aims to increase impact by taking advantage of this effect.
This gradual reduction of the vertical space to a more domestic scale follows the precedent of the existing architecture; as the curve of 350 Euston Road simultaneously narrows the space horizontally. As well as being representative of the space drawing you closer to the housing estate behind, this also creates a narrative as one walks through the space. The highest line is positioned purposely so that the cardigan forms remain slightly ambiguous, encouraging movement through the space in order to fully discover the work.
After meeting with the site managers, I finally have rough measurements of the window cleaning equipment and lift which is used to clean the glass. The lines will need to be positioned to allow the equipment to operate.
Furthermore, after consideration of the scale issue I'm leaning towards having more of the garments than originally planned and giving the installation the appearance of a 'scattering' rather than obvious lines. However, this will need to be achieved by careful positioning of them along the lines as the lines themselves do need to be regimented to allow for this equipment and to line up with fixing points.
Working with the elevations of the existing buildings, I'm also looking at the height of potential fixing points and trying to achieve a gradual overall decline in the height of the lines as one walks towards the centre of the site. I feel this would encourage movement through the site, with the garments becoming more understandable as they become closer.
The scale of the intervention is in deliberate contrast to the detailing of the existing structures. Oversized glass panels and exposed structural steel on the Euston Road buildings emanate strength, weight and power. In doing so they exclude any relation to familiar human scale. The proposal sees the wax objects suspended at a comprehendible height which aims to frame human movement through the space - contrasting and accentuating the towering architecture. I'm also aware that the wax items themselves are very small and may become enveloped by the surroundings. I feel though, that this could almost be a positive point - the work may not be immediately instrusive but 'discovered', creating a sudden shift in the viewer's interpretation of the architecture at the moment of discovery.
