Images show broken “mouth” opening left on the ground at the site of Pol 21 on Greenham Common former airbase, and a view of the site of what remains of the overground structures of Pol21 from a distance.
After struggling to upload these pictures once again (!) ( please can you improve this software a-n!) here’s a report on 2 visits to Greenham Common this week, one on my own and one with Lynn Dennison.
I spent hours taking photographs, singing songs and doing sound recordings at the Common. The songs are all related to various points in the history of the Common as a military base over a period of hundreds of years. There are lots of interesting examples of places where only traces of human activity are left eg. ruined buildings or other artefacts rusted and/or overgrown with vegetation. Gorse bushes are almost everywhere on the Common, and horses and cattle graze without hindrance of fences for large areas. Small planes and helicopters are often flying overhead.
I may have to go back and record more, and I need to write a text to speak at the Common. I’m not sure if this will be a text in sentences, a narrative, or simply words or abstract sounds. I want to convey something of the difficulties in finding and understanding the disappeared or semi-visible traces of activities on the Common. For example the two photographs here (I hope!) show remains of the overground equ8ipment for getting fuel out of underground fuel tanks for aircraft. From a distance they actually blend in with the landscape and this last remaining one is hard to find till you come upon it. at first you think the upright metal poles that remain are fence posts or even treetrunks. There’s a couple of these broken off rusted metal shapes on the concrete base which are amazing. If you look into one of them you realise that underneath is a very deep shaft with lots of empty space underneath the platform on ground level. it is quite dizzying to realise this. I experimented with striking a metal circular cover near one of these gaping “mouths” and this resulted in a kind of hollow breath emanating from the hole. Wonderful sound. I’m definitely going to use this and will return and record this again but leaving more time for every trace of the sound to die away before I hit the metal cover nearby again. Also the sound of the wind and of a wooden mallet sliding slowly up and down the sides of the metal uprights is great. When I’ve edited these files I’ll try to upload them in a new blog post. (Ha ha! That should be fun! )
On Thursday Lynn came with me and she did loads of filming and we discussed ideas for how the material (both visuals and sound) could be edited. Lynn suggested starting with the most recent songs and working backwards. I’ll need to think more about what the non-sung voice material is going to be. I envisage it kind of rising to the top and falling down to the bottom again in the way that archaeological stuff can do. I want an edit that isn’t just linear but very deep with loads of material in different tracks in the timeline, without things getting too messy. This is going to be a bit of a challenge. I’ve also been thinking about having sound sometimes without any visuals but I’m not sure that Lynn is totally convinced by this. We’ll discuss some more when we see what material we’ve got. Lynn also wants to shoot the footage at the Yew Tree again as sometimes there is too much sun in it…it was a lovely day. More after my next visit to Greenham which should be after delivery of replacement contact mics next week. Mine “disappeared” after an evening class I attended :( I’ll go back and record at the underground fuel tank site with the contact mics to see what that gives.
