History is certainly not boring!

Posted on by

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.

I love Lincoln Library

Posted on by

Trying to find solid evidence of an earthquake which occurred in 1185 is not the easiest task which I have ever taken on, however it is one of the more interesting. After deciding to venture into Lincoln’s library to see what it had to offer we were approached by a Librarian who asked us what we were looking for, in this question truly started our mission.

Three librarians helped in the search for information for the 1185 earthquake as well as other earthquakes and natural disasters which may have helped our search. We soon found out about the fires, and numerous earthquakes yet none to the magnitude of the one in 1185.

I was most interested when we were given numerous letters stapled together from the 6th of December 1985 (Gates S, 1985) , a woman was wanting to know more about the earthquakes which had occurred in Lincoln, within this a Dr J. A. Galletly wrote that he had found from a date book which he had that there had been earthquakes in 1038, 1142 and 1185 (Galletly J.A, 1985). Using this knowledge I needed to know about said date book and the information in which it held. The librarian then went on a search and came back with a red date book warning us to be careful and to return it straight after use as it would have to be locked away again. The date book noted:

1185

“An earthquake which overthrew a Church and did considerable damage to the Cathedral, of which Benedict, the Abbot of Peterborough says, the like had not been heard in England: – That the rocks were rent, and the Cathedral Church of Lincoln was cleft from top to bottom ….” (The Date Book, 31)

We were also given newspaper cuttings from later years explaining the extent of earthquakes and the harm that it can do to wildlife, especially birds. Something else that did come of interest was a report that was announced which recalled any diaries, journals or personal media in any way, or any parish records etc which may shed a light on the 15 April 1185 earthquake. This allowed us to see that still even Lincoln council are issuing recalls for any information which could help them into their research of this event, of which the magnitude in England has been unheard of since.

The Date Book, R.E. Leary.

Galletly, J. A. (1985) Earthquakes in Lincoln. [letter] Sent to S Gates, 19 December. Lincoln: [Accessed 23 March 2015].

 

Conan’s feedback

Posted on by

Conan’s visit was extremely beneficial. He provided a fresh new set of eyes to our piece and gave some promising feedback. One of his main points was we need to make it simpler. Concentrate on having a good solid audio and less on activities at each site. One clear point he made was to scrap our map as he doesn’t want the audience to be looking at the map and not at their surrounding. Luckily we only made a rough template of the map so we hadn’t wasted too much time.

11068800_10205294920665838_1125795677_n

He also suggested that we split our tour up into separate audio files so the audience can make their way round the site at their own pace without being rushed by the audio tour. Aside from the technical aspects of the audio, he gave us much needed direction in the way of what we were focusing on as a theme. Only recently had we scrapped the idea of a child’s perspective and thought about focusing on ‘a life journey’ and use all different perspectives from different age ranges. The route we had in mind for our tour was circular and it played very nicely into the idea of a pilgrimage, starting and finishing in the same place, ending at the beginning. Thus we looked into the pilgrim statue that is on the cathedral and the significance of the scallop shell. We realised that Lincoln, and more specifically the cathedral was and still is a significant pilgrimage point for the UK. Conan really like the idea of the pilgrim and the scallop shell and advised us to focus on that aspect more alongside the perspectives. Possibly a pilgrimage of developing an understanding of other people’s perspectives? Conan also mentioned that he liked the idea of coincidental objects/ happenings that appear subtly around the walk. This was something that we were unsure about, whether is was something worth pursuing, however Conan’s visit certified this and we can now work at developing the idea. Overall it was very beneficial and I fell much more on track!

Janet Cardiff

Posted on by

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].

Session with Conan

Posted on by

We learnt a lot from our session with Conan. Firstly, our introduction to our performance is good, Conan liked the blanket and the acceptance to take part with the scallop shell. We also discovered we need to introduce our tour to everyone at the beginning to avoid repetition throughout the tour to each individual: instructions such as ‘should you need more time, feel free to pause the audio’ etc. Secondly, the practicalities of our tour – listening to an audio tour while holding a map is very distracting and most likely means our audience will not take in the site around them which is exactly what we did not want to happen. Instead we will get rid of the map and guide them only using the audio, meaning we will have to write a detailed enough description in order for them to follow our instructions accordingly. We also discovered we had over complicated our tour; activities at each site is not necessary and it would be much better to free up our audience more to allow them to soak up their surroundings. This means we have more time for perceptions to be heard at the site which I believe would be more beneficial to our audience in terms of a journey. We also discovered instead of activities we should have ‘coincidences’ such as one member playing cats cradle on the bench at the Tennyson site, while the audience listen to the ‘cradle song’ and perhaps another member handing out tea to keep up with the fun feel and to keep them warm on their ‘journey’. We should also stick to the circular side of our journey – even if our sites do not venture further than the Tennyson statue it would be more beneficial to have the audience walk all the way round to the meeting point again as hopefully, while the audience are drinking their tea, they will feel relaxed and therefore look around without feeling pressured making the journey back to the beginning and hopefully seeing the cathedral in a whole new light.