This is another of the London-based experiences which I found inspiring and which I'd like to share with you. In fact this one has remained very firmly in my memory. As before, I shall give the original version with my present- day comments in italics.
At first nothing happened and I felt rather silly walking slowly along an East London street wearing headphones and a worried expression. Then, suddenly I began to hear it - faint, like a ghost's voice - a man talking about his family; his grandmother, 'born in Victoria's days, only four foot high with hair as black as a raven's wing,' his dad,' a Saxon, strong enough to lift an ox.'
He begins to remember his home room by room. 'This house is in my brain,' he says. Then suddenly I hear him describing its destruction. 'The house shakes, the house shakes,' he repeats like a mantra as the bailiffs rush in and his mother collapses.
I stop and lean on a wall, utterly absorbed. I am following the 3-mile LINKED trail from Hackney Marshes to Redbridge along which 20 concealed transmitters broadcast these memories. They were recorded by the artist Graeme Miller, whose own home was demolished in 1994 when, after vehement protest, passionate controversy and ultimately confrontation between police, bailiffs and residents, 400 homes were destroyed to make way for the M11 link road.
Miller uses an enticing range of sounds. Lists of furniture;'the old brown sofa,' 'the red number six,' 'the curl of the bannister,'. Also repetitive phrases, varied accents, snatches of plangent music and chiming of bells, all of which make for strangely poetic listening. Vivid audio scenes capture the spirit of the vanished community, 'groups of women in front gardens trimming hedges,' the painter who painted curtains on his half-demolished windows adding a picture of his cat Winnie on the window sill. 'I can still feel myself in that place,' says one voice. 'Where are all those people now?' asks another.
Finding the transmissions is a fascinating quest, ideal for a couple of friends or parents with (older) children. And the project can be made to last, just think how useful it could be to future historians...
This was written not long after LINKED was launched in 2003 but over the years its radio soundscape faded as various transmitters spluttered out of action. In the spring of 2020 all the transmitters which could still be found were taken down for repair and LINKED was made temporarily unavailable.
So LINKED, according to Debbie Kent in A Map of Missing Voices, 'has become almost wholly conceptual, existing in the memories of artist and audience.' Graeme Miller is quoted in that piece as saying,'What is left is like some kind of brain tissue that's been eroded by dementia, Just as the M11 erased a community.'
It would be a pity though, if LINKED were to disappear completely. I was happy to learn recently that Graeme Miller is going to stage 'the first annual 48-hour restoration of the entire network,' on 24th and 25th September 2022.
For more details
https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/project/linked
Patricia Cleveland-Peck
www.patriciaclevelandpeck.com
1 comment:
Very interesting post, Patricia. Thank you.
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