History of winds 2017 Brow Head, Mizen Peninsula
Sound Instillation for Lay of the Land - Tombolo 2017
History of winds
For the month of September 2017 - along with seven other artists - I was part of the site responsive sculptural project Lay Of the Land. Walking the headland every day became a ritual despite wind or rain and the more I walked the more I was interested in exploring the different temporalities of the headland through sound and sculpture. Brow head - the most Southerly point of Ireland, Brow head where the crashing Atlantic was visible on it's rock face; a point to view Fasnet lighthouse. Brow head the copper mine, a trading point, a Marconi signal tower... Each daily two hour walk over the headland led me to certain points that were linked to fixed moments in time - The mine shafts and old miners town, the thousand year old rock formations, the old trails worn into the headland. What do these places have in common? How was the headland experienced at the time each was formed? These were the questions I returned to on every walk.
History of Winds is an audio piece that was installed in a derelict miners cottage on the headland. Wind was recorded for five consecutive days at different GPS co-ordinates on the headland. The individual tracks were manipulated in order to tell the story of a new temporality; to recognise the diverse experience of sound that the headland holds beyond our immediate presence there.I was interested in exploring the acoustic narratives of the headland and moving beyond an occularcentric experience of it. The making of the audio prompted many questions around how we create an 'acoustic community' and whether a true sonic fact exists?
I installed the piece in an old miners cottage; you ascended from the headland to a hollow area protected from the prevailing s/w winds, the cottage was refuge from the wind but in it the observer listened to another history of winds.
For the culmination of the project the public were invited to journey to the tip of the Mizen Peninsula to experience the site and the works that respond to it. The exhibition was open to the public over the weekends of the 22nd of September and 29th of September 2017.
