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looking at the landscape surrounding the scheme. taking into consideration the atmosphere.

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A3 cyanotype print on calico, experimenting with light units and exposure. Experimenting with imagery and thinking about the relationship between images and where they sit alongside each other.

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using images my family took during the construction of the dam and power station. Using powerful images to make prints.

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Imagery featuring people, this adds new aspects of context to the image.

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some images worked better than others, images with higher contrast worked best.

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mixing land scape and portrait images

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shorter exposure results in lighter prints.

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double exposure creates abstract imagery with less information.

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construction of a good line separation results in clear images

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looking at original imagery during construction, thinking about ways i could use this in relation to my project in a relevant way.

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low light units

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photo taken once the power station was constructed

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images of construction

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stills from video made during workshop

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stills from moving image clip

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Looking and finding objects during my walk around the site. thinking about the relevancy of these objects and how they can be used.

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ball baring, used in hydro electric power stations.

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Photo transfer, black and white comparison, with primed grey background

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made in water colour workshop. thinking about rock surfaces

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unprimed black and white

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colour image transfer on unprimed canvas

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screen print made from screen in studio. onto brown paper. using imagery from historical images of the construction of the dam

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black and white photo transfer on raw canvas

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Lithography print, made by printing scrim onto surface. this was made to replicate rock face

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using the darkroom to develop cyanotype images

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evaluating my studio walls

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lithography of scrim onto newsprint

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Prodger works with moving image, printed image, sculpture and writing. She has been nominated for the 2018 Turner Prize for her solo exhibition BRIDGIT/Stoneymollan Trail at Bergen Kunsthall (2017) comprising two single-channel videos. Moving image has been at the core of Prodger’s work for two decades. Its ever-evolving formats are inextricably bound to the autobiographical content of her work. She has mined the material properties of numerous moving image formats, not just because they inherently get replaced over time, but because she is fascinated by their formal parameters and socio-political histories; the sticky relationship between form and content. Prodger’s recent videos set up complex tensions between the body, landscape, identity and time.

BRIDGIT is titled after the eponymous Neolithic deity whose name has had multiple iterations across different geographical locations and points in history. BRIDGIT was shot entirely on Prodger’s iPhone, which she approaches as a prosthesis or extension of the nervous system, intimately connected to time, social interaction and work. Body and device become extensions of each other, and the work becomes a unified meditation on shifting subjectivity.

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Portrait of Charlotte Prodger
Photography © Emile Holba 2018

Charlotte Prodger was born in Bournemouth, UK in 1974. She studied at Goldsmiths, London and The Glasgow School of Art.

Recent solo exhibitions include: BRIDGIT/Stoneymollan Trail, Bergen Kunsthall; Subtotal, Sculpture Center, New York (2017); BRIDGIT, Hollybush Gardens, London; Charlotte Prodger, Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2016); 8004-8019, Spike Island, Bristol; Stoneymollan Trail, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin (2015); Markets, Chelsea Space, London; Nephatiti, Glasgow International Director's Programme, Glasgow (2014); Percussion Biface 1-13, Studio Voltaire, London; Colon Hyphen Asterix, Intermedia CCA, Glasgow (2012) and Handclap/Punchhole, Kendall Koppe, Glasgow (2011). Recent group exhibitions include: Always Different, Always the Same: An Essay on Art and Systems, Bunder Kunstmuseum, Chur; ORGASMIC STREAMING ORGANIC GARDENING ELECTROCULTURE, Chelsea Space, London (2018); British Art Show 8 (2016); Weight of Data, Tate Britain, London; An Interior that Remains an Exterior, Künstlerhaus Graz (2015); A Survey of Recent Artists' Film and Video in Britain, Tate Britain, London; Annals of The Twentieth Century, Wysing Arts, Cambridge (2014) Holes In The Wall, Kunsthalle Freiburg and Frozen Lakes, Artists Space, New York (2013). Prodger received the 2014 Margaret Tait Award and 2017 Paul Hamlyn Award.

Prodger works with moving image, printed image, sculpture and writing. She has been nominated for the 2018 Turner Prize for her solo exhibition BRIDGIT/Stoneymollan Trail at Bergen Kunsthall (2017) comprising two single-channel videos. Moving image has been at the core of Prodger's work for two decades. Its ever-evolving formats are inextricably bound to the autobiographical content of her work. She has mined the material properties of numerous moving image formats, not just because they inherently get replaced over time, but because she is fascinated by their formal parameters and socio-political histories; the sticky relationship between form and content. Prodger's recent videos set up complex tensions between the body, landscape, identity and time.

BRIDGIT is titled after the eponymous Neolithic deity whose name has had multiple iterations across different geographical locations and points in history. BRIDGIT was shot entirely on Prodger's iPhone, which she approaches as a prosthesis or extension of the nervous system, intimately connected to time, social interaction and work. Body and device become extensions of each other, and the work becomes a unified meditation on shifting subjectivity.

Stoneymollan Trail is named after an ancient 'coffin road' on the west coast of Scotland. A non-linear miscellany of visual material from her personal archive (shot between 1999 and 2015), it traces a history of recent video formats as well as the artist's personal history. Much of Prodger's work looks at what happens to speech - and the self for which it is a conduit - as it metamorphoses via time, space and technological systems. For voiceovers, she frequently asks friends to read out her own diaristic content, while she inhabits other subjectivities by re-speaking the words of people living and dead: friends, anonymous YouTube users and historical figures of influence. The material perpetually shifts around but is locally grounded in its means of production - based in queerness, communality, technology, language and loss.

Charlotte Prodger is 44 and lives and works in Glasgow.

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Charlotte Prodger was born in Bournemouth, UK in 1974. She studied at Goldsmiths, London and The Glasgow School of Art.

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the relationship between moving image and the still image and audio, where do they exist in relation to one another?
Do they need each other to exist.
Does the audio need moving image to supplements. can it be a stand alone piece. can the sound be heard as a singular object with no other accompanying context. dose the moving image need text. in my sort film, is the text necessary to provide context within the subject?

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“LOGOS” AT BERGEN ASSEMBLY, COMMISSIONED BY PAUL B. PRECIADO AND VICTOR NEUMAN FOR THE PARLIAMENT OF BODIES, FALL 2019. “POST-RUIN” AT ART BASEL UNLIMITED, CURATED BY GIANNI JETZER, JUNE 2019. “ARGUMENTS SERIES” LECTURE AT COLUMBIA GSAAP, NEW YORK, JUNE 2019. “DEMOS GOLD” AT OGR TORINO, AS PART OF “…

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Moving image captured at the location of the Dam and the power station. Audio was recorded at the Dam, both underwater using hydrophones and contact microphone recordings of the generator and the accompanying pipeline.

currently has been screened at
-Glasgow Uni
-The Alchemy experiment
-Box hub

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The project 'LUSSA' has been developed in response to a hydro electric power plant project carried out by my father and his father in 1985.
This project documents the construction and existence of the power station, dam, and the surrounding bodies of water that contribute to the plant.
Elements such as audio, moving image and print have been used to document research.

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The camera hovers through the engine compartment of an ancient car I found rotting in the forest. The huge rusted out engine covered in mosses and fungi is reminiscent of an elaborate set for a Gothic science fiction movie. My intention was to make a video in ironic celebration of the increasingly inexplicable human obsession with the automobile, while simultaneously paying tribute to the transformative power of nature. Set in the temperate rain forest of North America’s Pacific West Coast the video, may perhaps, remind us that it was hereabouts that the V8 Mercury was once the ambassador of the Ford Motor Corporation, the family vehicle of choice, and an essential player in the ritual of courtship and romantic love. Accordingly, the first verse of the lyrics from Mercury Blues appears after the closing titles of the video.

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Shot with my I Phone on the day I resigned my position at Simon Fraser University. The sound of the ferry boat engines synchronize with the camera vibrations as Vancouver recedes into the distance. The car ferry as special effects generator as the present becomes the past.

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Shot with my I Phone on the day I resigned my position at Simon Fraser University. The sound of the ferry boat engines synchronize with the camera vibrations as Vancouver recedes into the distance. The car ferry as special effects generator as the present becomes the past.

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lithography made on zinc plate, printed onto paper. quick sketch of generator. using a wide range of drawing tools.

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images taken from a helicopter after the construction on the dam and power station

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Charlotte Prodger's work documents her surroundings in a simple manor with a raw footage atmosphere.  Her work usually captures a natural landscape with few people featuring. This style of film footage is almost documentary style.  These images are stills from some of her film work.​

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Charlotte Prodger is a Glasgow-based artist working with moving image across the ever-evolving formats that are inextricably bound to the autobiographical content of her work. Previous works combine video taken from YouTube with spoken text taken from internet forums and personal emails. The equipment used to play audio and video content is a vital part of Prodger's work: Most recently, she has been making longer single screen works such as BRIDGIT (2016), and Stoneymollan Trail, (2015).

Recent solo exhibitions include: Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, 2017; Sculpture Centre, New York, 2017; Hollybush Gardens, London, 2016; Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Germany, 2016; and Spike Island, Bristol, 2015.

Video: excerpt from BRIDGIT, 2016

Video: excerpt from Stoneymollan Trail, 2015

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Charlotte Prodger is a Glasgow-based artist working with moving image across the ever-evolving formats that are inextricably bound to the autobiographical content of her work. Previous works combine video taken from YouTube with spoken text taken from internet forums and personal emails.

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screen print
cyanotype
cheese cloth
calico
30x30 cm

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Maria Fusco: Master Rock → A Practice for Everyday Life

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Maria Fusco: Master Rock → A Practice for Everyday Life

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A Practice for Everyday Life is a graphic design studio, type foundry and shop based in London.

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Maria Fusco's master rock project also informed my work. Fusco's creative response to the dam and PowerStation was interdisciplinary, working with film, sound and spoken word, this vast project entailed a vast amount of research into the location and a broad creative response. ​

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Suzanne Jackson was born on January 30, 1944, in Saint Louis, Missouri. Her early childhood was nomadic, first moving to San Francisco at only nine months old, followed by pre-statehood Alaska, where the Jackson family settled in Fairbanks in 1952, remaining there throughout the rest of Jackson's childhood. In her teenage years, Jackson would receive her first oil paints, become a member of the National Audubon Society, and begin to study ballet professionally. These three influences would leave indelible marks on the rest of her life. She received her BA in painting from San Francisco State in 1966, with a minor in drama.

Following graduation, Jackson traveled to Mexico and South America with a modern dance troupe. Upon her return to North America in 1967, she settled into the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, where her career in the art world began to solidify. She soon enrolled in a drawing class taught by Charles White at the Otis Art Institute. Through White, she met other artists such as David Hammons, Alonzo Davis, and Timothy Washington, who would form the foundation of her circle in Los Angeles.

From 1968-1970, Jackson ran Gallery 32, a space dedicated to fostering a supportive artist community. Inspired by White's philosophy that art can be a vehicle for community activism and change, the gallery acted as a place to exchange ideas and philosophies, hosting discussions, poetry readings, and fundraisers for the likes of the Black Arts Council and the Black Panther Party. The gallery was the first to exhibit David Hammons' iconic body prints and was host to the 1970 "Sapphire Show." Organized by Betye Saar, "The Sapphire Show" is believed to be the first group show to feature solely Black women.

While running Gallery 32, Jackson was simultaneously making her own work. These paintings used acrylic paint almost like watercolor, with sometimes up to 150 layers of washy pigment set on top of one another to build up dreamy and lyrical images of Black figures, birds, flowers, and other natural elements. Nature has always been at the center of her work: appreciating it, understanding its history, and finding her place within it. In these motifs, one sees the impact of her time in Alaska and participation in the National Audubon Society. As she states, "I love nature, animals, children, spirit, love, and myself as a woman. If within my work the symbols reflect my culture, my upbringing, my environment, and especially my femininity, that is simply in everything of beauty and value that I want to do." (S. Jackson, quoted in R. Reese, "The Things Around Me: Art Life, and Nature in the Work of Suzanne Jackson,   Suzanne Jackson: Five Decade s, exh. cat., Telfair Museums, 2019, p. 108).

As the decades progressed, Jackson's practice evolved from layering colored washes to layering acrylic in a more sculptural fashion. In 1990, she received an MFA in theater design from Yale University and moved to Savannah, Georgia, shortly thereafter. Her degree from Yale, bolstered by her years studying dance and drama, greatly informs the sculptural nature of these later works, begun over the last decade and a half. Known as the "anti-canvases," these works are highly abstracted, contrasting with her early figurative paintings. To make these, Jackson piles layers of acrylic paint directly onto a table covered in plastic, then peels it off and hangs the drying paint like a canvas, allowing her to layer acrylic on acrylic without the need for traditional support. She then imbues these works with found objects and detritus from her studio-a nod to her love of nature and desire to positively impact the environment through upcycling-including netting, old ballet costumes, peanut shells, bells, loquat seeds, and leather string. Made to look like theater scrims, these "anti-canvases" will sometimes also incorporate bogus paper, a type of material used during set building, which she pinches and crimps to lend an even more lyrical aura to her work.

Jackson was a professor in the Savannah College of Art and Design painting department from 1996 until 2014. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant and the subject of a major career retrospective,  Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades, organized by the Jepson Center for the Arts, Telfair Museums, Savannah. Her first solo exhibition in New York,  Suzanne Jackson: NEWS!, was held at Ortuzar Projects from November 2019-January 2020. Jackson has also been included in significant group shows, including   Life Model: Charles White and His Students, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019);  West by  Midwest, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018-2019); and  Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, Crystal Bridges, and Brooklyn Museum (2018-2019). Her work with Gallery 32 has been featured in exhibitions such as   Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2011-2013); and   Gallery 32 & Its Circle, Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles (2009). She lives and works in Savannah, Georgia.

"I am a Black person, a human being. I make art. In my art [I] do things that a white artist doesn't. The essence of being a Black person makes the way you touch the materials, deal with the color, different than a white person. There is something under it. The quality, the essence, the spirit is there no matter where you come from."

- SUZANNE JACKSON

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Suzanne Jackson was born on January 30, 1944, in Saint Louis, Missouri. Her early childhood was nomadic, first moving to San Francisco at only nine months old, followed by pre-statehood Alaska, where the Jackson family settled in Fairbanks in 1952, remaining there throughout the rest of Jackson's childhood.

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Using materials such as wood, stone and snow, Andy Goldsworthy’s land art explores our connection with nature. TateShots visited him at his studio in southwest Scotland and took a walk with him through the landscape that is at the heart of his work.

Land art is art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs. Land art is usually documented in artworks using photographs and maps which the artist could exhibit in a gallery. Land artists also made land art in the gallery by bringing in material from the landscape and using it to create installations.

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Andy Goldsworthy (born 26 July 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.

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Andy Goldsworthy (born 26 July 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.

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'When we started this project, we knew it was important that we didn't harm the landscape because we are in a popular tourist spot. We wanted to make sure our clean credentials were preserved,' says estate proprietor and operator of the plant, Martin Foster. 'Because of this, we built the powerhouse in a stone building with a slate roof, and we buried the accompanying pipeline. We wanted to demonstrate that we were serious about building an environmentally acceptable project.'

'We had the plant up and running by September 1986, but we ran into difficulties straight away with the pipeline. The 1375m long pipe had to run across a mountain, which had ridges of solid rock and gullies of deep peat. When we laid the pipe, we dug the tops of the ridges away and filled the gullies.

'When we first filled the pipe, everything appeared to be satisfactory. Soon afterwards however, the weight of the water broke the back of the pipes, because the peat filled gullies allowed the pipe to sink down. This problem persisted intermittently for two years,' he adds.

Foster also explains that the water itself has caused problems. 'In this particular area we have very peaty water. The peat suspended in the water sticks to the inside of the pipeline, causing ripples on the pipe. This reduces the flow rate by 20%.'

To combat this problem, every six months Foster has to clean out the pipe.

'We drain the entire pipeline,' he says. 'We then put a bristled pig at the top and turn the valve on slightly at the top. The water pressure pushes the pig down, and when it comes out the bottom, usually after about five minutes, the pipe is clean.

'The dirty water from the pipe sits in a small pond near the bottom of the pipe, but it eventually settles out and goes back into the river,' he adds. 'There's nothing we can do about this problem really, we just have to keep cleaning it.'

Talking finance

Another aspect of the plant that Foster is keen to point out involves problems with the pricing structure for the electricity produced, which he now sells to Scottish and Southern Energy.

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The Athanasius Kircher Society revisits England's sound mirrors : wartime acoustic reflectors used to amplify the sounds of distant Nazi air...

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imagery taken from recent trips to the scheme

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taking hydro microphone recordings under the water of the dam

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back of the hydro where water is dispensed back into the river and into the ocean

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interview regarding the station

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A 350kW hydro plant forms part of a 202ha family estate on the shores of Loch Sween in Mid Argyll, Scotland. Carrieann Davies talked to the estate proprietor, Martin Foster, and discovered how the plant is operated and maintained

SITUATED on the picturesque shores of Loch Sween in Mid Argyll, Scotland, the 202ha Ashfield family estate boasts enterprises such as farming, forestry and holiday cottages. This impressive estate is also home to the 350kW Ashfield hydroelectric power station.

Developed and built in 1985, with the intention of using the river Lussa to produce power which could be sold to the then North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board (NSHEB), the plant has proved to be a popular tourist attraction in this national scenic area, renowned for its abundant variety of wildlife, including seals, otters and deer.

'When we started this project, we knew it was important that we didn't harm the landscape because we are in a popular tourist spot. We wanted to make sure our clean credentials were preserved,' says estate proprietor and operator of the plant, Martin Foster. 'Because of this, we built the powerhouse in a stone building with a slate roof, and we buried the accompanying pipeline. We wanted to demonstrate that we were serious about building an environmentally acceptable project.'

The plant - fitted with a twin jet vertical shafted turgo impulse turbine from Gilkes - is controlled by monitoring equipment within the powerhouse, and an ultrasonic level sensing device in the 1.5m high dam.

According to Foster, the power produced by the plant is totally reliable. 'The only thing we can't do,' he says, 'is forecast precisely what we're going to produce because we are obviously dependent on rainfall. When it's raining, we've got lots of water and the plant runs at full power. Within two or three days of the rain stopping, we're starting to wind down on output and we normally get about 65% of plant utilisation.'

Pipework problems

Since he began building the hydro plant, Foster has had to overcome several challenges in its operation and maintenance. He explains: 'We had the plant up and running by September 1986, but we ran into difficulties straight away with the pipeline. The 1375m long pipe had to run across a mountain, which had ridges of solid rock and gullies of deep peat. When we laid the pipe, we dug the tops of the ridges away and filled the gullies.

'When we first filled the pipe, everything appeared to be satisfactory. Soon afterwards however, the weight of the water broke the back of the pipes, because the peat filled gullies allowed the pipe to sink down. This problem persisted intermittently for two years,' he adds.

Foster also explains that the water itself has caused problems. 'In this particular area we have very peaty water. The peat suspended in the water sticks to the inside of the pipeline, causing ripples on the pipe. This reduces the flow rate by 20%.'

To combat this problem, every six months Foster has to clean out the pipe.

'We drain the entire pipeline,' he says. 'We then put a bristled pig at the top and turn the valve on slightly at the top. The water pressure pushes the pig down, and when it comes out the bottom, usually after about five minutes, the pipe is clean.

'The dirty water from the pipe sits in a small pond near the bottom of the pipe, but it eventually settles out and goes back into the river,' he adds. 'There's nothing we can do about this problem really, we just have to keep cleaning it.'

Talking finance

Another aspect of the plant that Foster is keen to point out involves problems with the pricing structure for the electricity produced, which he now sells to Scottish and Southern Energy.

'Basically, in 1987 we got 3.35 US cents per unit (cpu) for 16 hours and 2.29cpu for eight hours, and we were charged US$409 per month' he says. 'Today we get pool purchase price. During October, November and December 2001 and January 2002, a time when most of our production is made, we averaged 2.87cpu for 16 hours. We were also charged administration fees of US$268, a settlement fee of US$17.5 and metering cost us US$65.6 a month. The income was better 15 years ago!'

Foster points out that this price drop was due to the local electricity board needing to purchase its power in the most economically feasible way. 'I think it was decided it was cheaper to buy gas then it was to buy from us. The price had to come down to compete.'

However, this situation may change with the Renewables Obligation (Scotland) (ROS), which will oblige all licensed electricity suppliers in Scotland to obtain renewables obligation certificates (ROCs) sufficient to cover a specified proportion of the electricity supplied to their customers in Scotland.

'Obviously, the ROS is totally going to transform our cashflow because it gives an added value to the product we produce,' says Foster. 'We now sell the power, the renewables obligation certificates, the levy exemption certificates, and any embedded benefits, whereas originally we were just selling the power at wholesale price. Things are really changing now.'

Future prospects

Despite these problems with operation and maintenance, Foster is planning to build a new hydro plant in the future.

'We're currently in the process of obtaining planning permission for a new hydro plant on the estate,' he says. 'This kind of clean power is going to be ever more important in the future, and with the introduction of the renewables obligation it's going to be more economically feasible.

'This area is ideal for developing new hydro schemes,' he adds. 'As long as we take into account landscaping, water quality and environmental issues, building new plants could really help benefit the area and offer a cleaner source of energy.'

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Small Solutions - International Water Power

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A 350kW hydro plant forms part of a 202ha family estate on the shores of Loch Sween in Mid Argyll, Scotland. Carrieann Davies talked to the estate proprietor, Martin Foster, and discovered how the plant is operated and maintained

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Flora Parrott had an artist talk I attended. There is a relationship with Parrott's work and my project.  I was interested in the way Parrott collected research and presented her findings. Parrott uses sound recordings when showing her findings, she also combines elements of sculpture and installation within her work, ​

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'Darkness Retreat' 2021

A digital exhibition commissioned by Legion Projects, you can view the environment HERE.

Please view on a desk top computer.

The retreat took place in a nondescript hostel room in a German ashram found on the internet. Inside the otherwise ordinary room every crevice and opening was gaffer-taped and the only door led to a blackened hallway, all of this to keep out the light.

Darkness Retreat is a response to the physical and tactile nature of the room the retreat took place in; where surfaces and shapes extruded and morphed once the lights were out. It is also a response to the interior space of the mind, which - when somewhere between sleep and wakefulness - spilled into the exterior during this period of self-imposed sensory deprivation.

Darkness Retreat presents itself as a series of spoken letters to Aoife, a close friend of the artist who she met at art school twenty years ago. Aoife was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer during the development of the project. She died in a room at St. Joseph's Hospice in 2019. Aoife worked with film sets and props, and as the pieces for Darkness Retreat developed it became clear that her aesthetic had made its way into the work. How much space does grief occupy? Does it have a lumen? And where does the memory of someone go when they are gone?

3D models by George Eksts

Web design by Matt Woodham

Score and sound design by Mark Dicker

Produced by Una Hamilton Helle, Legion Projects

Supported by Arts Council England and The Henry Moore Foundation

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By identifying and exploiting the usually overlooked physical properties of modest, mass-produced goods, Donovan creates ethereal works that challenge our perceptual habits and preconceptions. The atmospheric effects of her art align her with Light and Space artists, such as Robert Irwin and James Turrell, while her commitment to a laborious and site-responsive methodology links her to Postminimalist and Process artists, especially Eva Hesse, Jackie Winsor, Richard Serra, and Robert Morris.

Soon after receiving an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1999, she obtained her first major museum solo exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Hemicycle Gallery in Washington, D.C. A year later, she participated in the prestigious biennial of the Whitney Museum of American Art. In the early 2000s, for her first major gallery exhibitions at Ace Gallery in New York and Los Angeles, Donovan mounted a series of site-responsive installations, which became representative of her practice. In celebrated works, most notably Transplanted (2001), Nebulous (2002), and Haze (2003), Donovan created sublime gradients of light, color, translucence, and texture using nothing but tar paper, Scotch tape, and drinking straws, respectively. Despite the artificiality of their materials, Donovan’s works often take on biomorphic qualities or evoke natural phenomena, from fog and rock formations to fungal blooms and stalagmites. Other works such as Colony (2000), which suggested urban sprawl, gestured to humankind’s mark on the world—the Anthropocene.

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Tara Donovan’s sculptures, drawings, prints, and large-scale installations transform the banality of everyday objects into the extraordinary.

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published on

Flora Parrott & Lindiwe Matshikiza Invisible Fish 2021 Characters voiced by Sade Sangowawa in Middlesbrough, England and Leila Jungar in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Contains tracks

License: cc-

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Flora Parrott & Lindiwe Matshikiza Invisible Fish 2021 by MIMAuseful

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Flora Parrott & Lindiwe Matshikiza Invisible Fish 2021 Characters voiced by Sade Sangowawa in Middlesbrough, England and Leila Jungar in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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The socioeconomic impact on the environment

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The socioeconomic impact on the environment

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walk on the weekend to take some pictures and record some sound, make some drawings.

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Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA (born 1965) is a British visual artist who works primarily in film. She was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Los Angeles, California.

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Tacita Charlotte Dean CBE, RA (born 1965) is a British visual artist who works primarily in film. She was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008.

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In the beginning: the legend of Ben Cruachan

Legend has it there was once a fountain that welled up from the peak of Ben Cruachan, guarded by the Cailleach Bheur, or Old Hag of the Ridges.

In the beginning: the legend of Ben Cruachan

Her duty was to cover the spring with a slab of stone at sundown and lift away the rock at dawn. One evening she fell asleep and the well overflowed, rushing down the mountainside and bursting open a new outlet to the sea through the Pass of Brander.

In the beginning: the legend of Ben Cruachan

Legend says this is how the River Awe and Loch Awe were formed. The Cailleach was turned to stone as punishment for her negligence and to this day sits above the Pass of Brander.

In the beginning: the legend of Ben Cruachan

Legend has it there was once a fountain that welled up from the peak of Ben Cruachan, guarded by the Cailleach Bheur, or Old Hag of the Ridges.

Her duty was to cover the spring with a slab of stone at sundown and lift away the rock at dawn. One evening she fell asleep and the well overflowed, rushing down the mountainside and bursting open a new outlet to the sea through the Pass of Brander.

Legend says this is how the River Awe and Loch Awe were formed. The Cailleach was turned to stone as punishment for her negligence and to this day sits above the Pass of Brander.

1930

Conceiving the Hollow Mountain

Cruachan was the brainchild of Sir Edward McColl, a Dumbarton-born engineer and pioneer of hydro power in Scotland.

Having started his career at the Glasgow Corporation and Clyde Valley Electric Power Company, McColl turned his attention to bringing hydroelectricity to the Highlands and conceived the idea for Cruachan Power Station in the 1930s.

1947

Tom Johnston pushes Cruachan through parliament

Tom Johnston, a native of Kirkintilloch and wartime Secretary of State for Scotland, was a huge advocate of hydroelectric power in the region. When he came across the scheme for the Hollow Mountain he forced it through Parliament in 1947.

1950

Design begins

The designer of Cruachan was James Williamson, a civil engineer from Lanarkshire. A lot of time was spent at the design stage, optimising all aspects of construction and operation. Many working models of the turbines were built and work tests were carried out on completed alternators before being delivered to the site.

1959

The Tunnel Tigers get to work

During the six years of construction, there was a large workforce of 1,300 men, affectionately known as the Tunnel Tigers. But before they could build the power station inside the mountain, they had to drill and blast into it. The men used handheld air drills to bore holes in the solid granite rock, which were then packed with gelignite and blasted.

Because of the limitations of local roads and the size of the access tunnel, all the equipment had to be broken down into manageable loads for transportation. The first plant items to be installed were the turbine casings, which were mounted at the lower levels of the cavern.

1960

Connecting Cruachan

A 275,000V transmission line was constructed to carry power from the top of the cable shaft just in front of the dam to Dalmally substation, five miles east of Cruachan, and then on to Windyhill, north of Glasgow. This line remains in place today, passing through rough terrain and reaching 550 metres above sea level at its highest point.

1965

The Royal Opening

Cruachan Power Station was officially opened by Her Majesty The Queen on 15 October 1965. It was the first reversible pumped storage hydro system on this scale to be built in the world.

1967

Reaching full load

At the time The Queen officially opened the power station just two of the turbines were completed and operational. It was with the two remaining turbines coming into service in 1966 and 1967 that the Cruachan Power Station reached its full capacity.

Cruachan Mural

Inside the machine hall visitors can find a mural of inlaid woods by artist Elizabeth Falconer which depicts the history of Cruachan, from its legendary origins to its role in power generation today.

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Legend has it there was once a fountain that welled up from the peak of Ben Cruachan, guarded by the Cailleach Bheur, or Old Hag of the Ridges. Her duty was to cover the spring with a slab of stone at sundown and lift away the rock at dawn.

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Conceived as a work for radio, this experimental drama was performed and recorded live inside Cruachan Power Station, almost a mile beneath a reservoir on one of West Scotland's highest mountains, Ben Cruachan. Half a century ago, explosives experts known as the tunnel tigers blasted their way through the granite rock to make an immense chamber for the power station. Fusing the documentary and lyric, Fusco tells the epic story of the hollowing out of the mountain.

Master Rock incorporates sound composed on site by Olivier Pasquet together with three distinctive voices: Irish actor Lalor Roddy as John Mulholland, one of the few surviving tunnel tigers; poet Denise Riley as Elizabeth Falconer, an amateur artist who made a vast marquetry mural inside the turbine hall; and musician Ceylan Hay as the voice of the ancient granite.

Performances took place over four consecutive days, the first on 15 October 2015, exactly 50 years after the opening of the power station. The first performance was recorded for broadcast and premiered on BBC Radio 4 on 17 October 2015.

Master Rock is available here, left, to listen to online, it is preceded by a short introduction from the artist. It is also available to stream or download from Soundcloud.

Image: Cruachan Power Station during the inaugural performance of Master Rock, 15 October 2015. Photograph: Robert Ormerod

Ben Cruachan: The Hollow Mountain

Ben Cruachan, a mountain that shares its name with a Celtic battle cry, is one of the highest peaks on the west coast of Scotland.

Its 450 million-year-old granite was excavated by explosive experts, hollowing out a vast chamber in which to build a hydro-electric power station, accessible today via a kilometre-long tunnel.

Opened by Queen Elizabeth II in October 1965, Cruachan Power Station pumps water from Loch Awe to a reservoir more than 1000 feet up the mountain.

A radio documentary on Ben Cruachan Power Station, Inside the Rock, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 prior to their broadcast of Master Rock in October 2015. The documentary includes interviews with the artist, Maria Fusco and some of the individuals who inspired her characters in Master Rock, including the mural artist Elizabeth Falconer. Available to listen again on the BBC's website.

Talk: Maria Fusco in conversation with Joanna Walsh

To coincide with the London launch of Maria Fusco's book Master Rock, the writer was joined in conversation with fellow author Joanna Walsh. Exploring a range of issues including the importance of site, the space of radio, and writing for voices, Fusco and Walsh's conversation is interspersed with short excerpts featuring the different voices in Master Rock.

In association with Artangel and Book Works, the event was presented as part of Cutting an Object Into Slices: A Series of Lectures on Creative Critical Writing organised by Dr. Kristen Kreider for the Practice-based PhD Programme at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Recorded in Swedenborg Hall at the Swedenborg Society London, on Wednesday May 4 2016. Audio produced by Chalk & Blade

The talk is is also available to listen to on Soundcloud.

Image: Cruachan Power Station at the inaugural performance of Master Rock, 15 October 2015. Photograph: Robert Ormerod

Maria Fusco

Maria Fusco was selected as part of the 2014 Open call for proposals from Artangel and BBC Radio 4 and as a result produced Master Rock in 2015.

Fusco is a Belfast-born writer now based in Glasgow. She works across an interdisciplinary field of writing including fiction, criticism and theory, her work is translated into ten languages. Solo-authored books include With A Bao A Qu: Reading When Attitudes Become Form (Los Angeles/Vancouver: New Documents, 2013), GONDA (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2012), and The Mechanical Copula (Berlin/New York: Sternberg Press, 2011).

She is the founder/editor of The Happy Hypocrite, a journal for and about experimental writing and was Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. She was the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Whitechapel Gallery, is a Hawthornden Fellow, was awarded as a Jerwood Creative Catalyst and named as one of Canongate's Future 40. She is currently Professor at Northumbria University, Visiting Professor at Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main, Frankfurt (2018-2021) and Research Fellow at Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam.

Find out more about Fusco's work on her website: mariafusco.net

Images: (left) Maria Fusco during the production of Master Rock, September 2015. Photograph: Martin Clark; (above) Maria Fusco by Ross Fraser McLean / StudioRoR.

Selected Press

Fusco's interpretation...activates archetypes, rendering the construction of the station and its channelling of the elements as a primal confrontation with embodied forces. - David Keenan, The Wire, February 2016

At the heart of Fusco's radio play is the question of the unseen. Cruachan is all but invisible to the external eye but the mountain conceals a turbine hall the size of a football pitch and a 19km network of tunnels and pipes. - Moira Jeffrey, a-n, 16 October 2015

The following words explore how accent and dialect might be shaped by physical forces and how, within Master Rock, they become solid and abrasive through the actors' delivery...The voice of the granite is multi-layered, musical, and sounds like a force grappling to harmonise many voices. - Claire Walsh, Map Magazine, 11 December 2015

They continue to work... their voices, notionally independent yet in concert, knead, manipulate and tease out something unfinished. - James Gormley, This Is Tomorrow, 22 December 2015

"Is it possible to shape that which you haven't seen?" Fusco asks us. Master Rock is about the conundrum of the unseen and the unseeable and thus also about the urgent telling of hidden histories. - Moira Jeffrey, The Scotsman, 16 October 2015

Master Rock
£12.00 from Book Works

Never pass one conversation the whole time we are down here. Haven't a spare breath except for work. Can't even hear so much as ourselves breathing. Effing and blinding, and worse even the whole time but. Do you know how we know that? We'll tell you how we know that, for drilling up close we can see by the way mouths move. Drilling's our conversation. - John Mulholland, tunnel tiger, in Master Rock

This book comprises extracts from the script of the radio production alongside extensive archival imagery.

Co-published by Artangel and Book Works, as part of Co-series, No. 11

Designed by A Practice for Everyday Life

Edition of 1,250, 92pp

Duotone

Hard cover

210 x 135 mm

ISBN: 9781906012748

Production Credits

Written and directed by Maria Fusco

Composition by Olivier Pasquet

Performed by Denise Riley as the voice of Elizabeth Falconer, Lalor Roddy as the voice of the tunnel tiger and Ceylan Hay as the voice of the granite

Project Manager: Sinéad McCarthy
Production Manager: Nick Millar
Lighting Designer: Nich Smith
Stage Manager: Carrie Taylor
Sound Engineer: Alex McNutt
Lighting Engineer: Grahame Gardner
Rigging: Kevin Murray

Produced for BBC Radio 4 by Somethin' Else
Producer: Joby Waldman
Sound Engineer: Eloise Whitmore

Biographies

Olivier Pasquet is a composer, music producer and visual artist currently based in Berlin and Paris, where he has been part of the IRCAM team at the Pompidou Centre for the past 15 years.

Professor Denise Riley was born in 1948 in Carlisle. She is Professor of the History of Ideas and of Poetry at the University of East Anglia and an author of both poetry and philosophical works.

Lalor Roddywas born in 1954 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is an actor, known for Hunger (2008), Grabbers (2012 and The 18th Electricity Plan (2006).

Ceylan Hay is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, currently studying for a Masters in Music at University of Edinburgh.

Image: Olivier Pasquet (left) at the sound desk during the inaugural performance of Master Rock, 15 October 2015. Photograph: Robert Ormerod

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An experimental radio play by writer Maria Fusco recorded in Ben Cruachan Scotland, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and now available online

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And the Earth Screamed, Alive by Emma Charles