History is certainly not boring!

Me and two other members of my group gathered at the Lincoln Central Library Archives to see what we could find on the 1185 earthquake of Lincoln. The people in there where more than happy to help and presented us with more than 10 things to helps us on our ‘quest’ for information.

We found that in several books there was only a line of information about the earthquake and generically read, in 1185 there was and earthquake that hit Lincoln and destroyed the very first Cathedral that stood there. But no more could be found.

After looking for a hour we came across a letter sent our by a man looking for more information on the earthquake and he had a date book which took us down various different routes and brought up some things of interest we are looking to use in our piece.

Me and the other two members stayed in the library for hours searching and found the experience very interesting and useful. we just now arranged a group meeting to share what we have found.

Janet Cardiff

After returning to Site with the onset of showing Conan some of the work our group had been preparing, I unfortunately had to take a back seat to listen about the change in ideas that we had been thinking about.

With the ideas of the 1185 earthquake still prominent in our piece I have been researching the basis behind an earthquake, the basic movements and vibrations which must occur for this natural disaster to occur. However I was also intrigued to research a certain artist Janet Cardiff who is known specifically for her work with sound and sound installations.

I have specifically looked at an audio walk formed by Cardiff and Miller named Jena Walk (Memory Field). The basis behind this idea was the audience would listen to an audio piece which would include sound effects from battle scenes as well as excerpts from Louise Seidler’s Diary. Cardiff wanted to use a specific landscape where the Prussians and Napolean battle had taken place 200 years before, this landscape was also a place where Russian tanks did Military exercises and one where Louise Seidler; the painter of Goethe from Jena may have walked. Cardiff took the basis of these historical events to make an audio piece about time and memory, and how one site can hold so many memories yet so many make new memories their every day.  Throughout the audio piece one century slips to another and as the listener walks they begin to become aware of each step they are taking, of where they are, of the site they are walking on just as those have for the last 200 years and the stories from those last 200 years begin to mix. The excerpts from Seidler’s diary are cleverly used as …” a narrative that deal with the physicality of memory”. Cardiff, J. Miller, B.G. (2006)

Our own piece is about an earthquake in 1185 which destroyed the Cathedral, our idea for the audio is to almost relive this with the sound of what could be the rumbles that the earthquake would have made (our own interpretation) and the crashes and movements from buildings around them, until the end at the Cathedral with a newspaper headline read out about the fall of the Cathedral. However could we use inspiration from Cardiff’s work, could we use extracts throughout the piece to vocalise what happened rather than allow our listener to decide everything? Would it be better this way to get the audience thinking about if such a tragedy happened now?

Cardiff, J. Miller, B.G. (2006) JENA WALK ( MEMORY FILED). [online] Available from: http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/jena.html [ Accessed 22 March 2015].

Time for a Change

Through out the weeks we have been developing the idea of our split audio walk, experimenting with different routes, sound, ways for the listener to know where to walk to ect. we then presented this idea to Conan and Rachael. Although this was quite daunting we received good feedback which aloud use to alter our idea, a little drastically, for the better and simplify and define our idea. Conan was particularly interested in the idea of the Earthquake and said to look behind the science and history of earthquakes and concentrate on that. So me Elizabeth and George decided to take a trip to the Lincoln Central Library archives the following Monday.

Audio And Where to Take It

When we were put into our groups we decided that we wanted to go down the route of an audio game/tour. we then later on decided we wanted our audience to have different experiences. We took the idea of a misguide and the some of the history surround the uphill area of Lincoln and merge them into two audio tours. One would take the route of Heaven and the other hell. After presenting our idea to Rachael she made very valid points about our idea not being the best and a bit generic so we retreated to a coffee shop to warm up and see if we could keep the structure but change the ‘flesh’  of the idea. We later came up with the idea of war/RAF and also discovered the 1185 earthquake that hit Lincoln and cause extensive damage to the Cathedral. so we thought by only using audio and a map we could create a soundscape of both scenarios and leaving the listener to make up there own mind about what they are hearing and what it might be based on.   Continue reading

Inspired

Today session involved the group being led on a tour of the uphill area of Lincoln. We discovered the sites we would be able to use and places I personally never knew where there. Whilst on the tour I began to collate different elements to make my idea which I would like to expand upon for my performance. My idea is to work with the perspective of the uphill ‘world’ through heightened senses. When reviewing my photos after the tour some of them inspired me to maybe use photography to portray different feelings or edit them in such a way (like the experimental ones below) to show what partially sighted,colour blind and disabled people may see or to maybe portray different emotions/feelings such as awe, wonder, hopelessness or confusion.

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