Listening. Alex and EVP.

One of the attractions of this place is the lack of a formal museum or heritage centre. Archives exist, in

Barrow; the Askam Historical Society holds talks and public events on the industrial history, and local people like Kevin Alexander combine research with passed-down accounts.   Rather than a shelf or a vitrine, Askam's story occupies the space available in it's people and the materiality of the place itself. 

Jim and Kevin are from one of Askam's oldest families, and Kevin in particular has a direct connection with the past through his daily experience of this  shifting land, and the presence of his and Jim's old 'uns in it..their boats are still on the estuary, their pens are still worked, the stakes still get put out.    The rest of us are from outside the region; we arrive at a remove, needing a conduit for this fluid history. The need for these conduits may turn out to be the subject; the  extent to which we can - or should-  tell a story that isn't ours, and what happens to it when we do. The ecology of history may be as fragile as any other. 

 I found an abstract online, called Mining memories in a rural community: landscape, temporality and place identity by Rebecca Wheeler, a fascinating and rewarding read that both confirmed the value of some of these leads  and will point the way to others. 

 Alex meanwhile is exploring  Electronic Voice Phenomena using devices that have been engineered specifically for ghost hunters,  which work by randomly scanning through FM and AM frequencies to pick up words or voices  in the white noise. The performative possibilities of this are part of  the appeal; an investigator records her or himself asking questions in an empty room, with the hope that upon playback, voices will appear.  These and other attempts at establishing conduits  became popular after the first world war, amongst fragile receptors who found themselves alone in a strange landscape, their loss described to them as a divide and therefore bridgeable.

(There are three spiritualist churches in nearby Barrow. At their services a speaker will give an address relating to the reading, the medium will not  have practised the address, as it is thought to be inspired by the spirit realm. Basic improv skills. )

The formal, ritual elements of  EVP divination place it in the performative realm, close to that of the charismatic medium, or the artist.  Manipulative of subjects and material alike, the process is illustrative of a need rather than its salve.  Voices summoned to a muster point, in a conspiracy of place, time, and desire.