Tide Times: Responding to Cramond
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Research How to Cite: Bissell, L and Cooper, T 2019 Tide Times: Responding to Cramond. Body, Space & Technology, 18(1), pp. 235–266. DOI: https://doi. org/10.16995/bst.312 Published: 12 March 2019 Peer Review: This article has been peer reviewed through the double-blind process of Body, Space & Technology, which is a journal published by the Open Library of Humanities. Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Open Access: Body, Space & Technology is a peer-reviewed open access journal. Digital Preservation: The Open Library of Humanities and all its journals are digitally preserved in the CLOCKSS scholarly archive service. Laura Bissell and Timothy Cooper, ‘Tide Times: Responding to Cramond’ (2019) 18(1) Body, Space & Technology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/ bst.312 RESEARCH Tide Times: Responding to Cramond Laura Bissell and Timothy Cooper Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, GB Corresponding author: Laura Bissell ([email protected]) This article explores site-responsiveness in the context of a collaborative work, Tide Times, by Laura Bissell (writer) and Timothy Cooper (electroacoustic composer) created for the island of Cramond. In this co-written submission we examine the ways in which the work responded to our experience of exploring the tidal island on the East Coast of Scotland during five visits between April and August 2018. Contextualising Tide Times through Ingold’s ideas of atmosphere and place (Ingold, 2015), theories of soundwalking (Westerkamp, 2007) and acoustic ecology (Clarke, 2005) we discuss our attempt to heighten the participants’ experience of the island and encourage a playful exploration of place. This article will discuss the ways in which the electroacoustic compositions and texts responded to site, environmental sound, the natural flora and fauna of the island and its visitors. Tim’s electroacoustic compositions were combined with a palimpsest of texts including reflective accounts of visits to Cramond (written by Laura and Tim), site-responsive poems (written by Laura), fragments of found text, poems and excerpts from oceanographer Rachel Carson’s The Edge of the Sea (Carson, 2014)(curated by Laura). These audio tracks attempt to explore an experience of this place, its tidal qualities, and the multiple identities of Cramond Island over time. Inspired by the geocache we found on our first visit to the island (a global treasure hunt using GPS), we created nine treasure chests to be found using a map to accompany the audio exploration which included invitations for visitors to the island to engage in making their own creative responses to this site. Whilst the pre-recorded tracks and the invitations remain constant, the way that the participants respond to these will continue to reshape the precise nature of the work: in this way the participants become active collaborators in the creation of Tide Times. Keywords: Site-responsive; tidal island; poetry; electroacoustic music; explorative 236 Bissell and Cooper: Tide Times Introduction This article explores site-responsiveness in the context of a durational work, Tide Times, by Laura Bissell (poet/writer) and Tim Cooper (electroacoustic composer/writer) created for the island of Cramond (Figure 1). In this co-written submission we examine the ways in which the work responded to our experience of exploring the tidal island on the East Coast of Scotland during five visits between April and August 2018. Contextualising Tide Times through anthropologist Timothy Ingold’s ideas of atmosphere and place (Ingold, 2015), theories of soundwalking (Westerkamp, 2007) and sound mapping (Stollery, 2010, 2018 and Stein and Stein, 2018) we discuss our attempt to heighten the participants’ experience of the island and encourage a playful exploration of place. Using Gaston Bachelard’s ‘Water and Voice’ (2006) and Rachel Carson’s The Edge of the Sea (2014), to generate a poetic palimpsest of text and sound, Tide Times in turn invites audiences to respond to this place, its inhabitants, its tidal qualities, and the multiple identities of Cramond Island over time. Figure 1: Cramond Walkway. Bissell and Cooper: Tide Times 237 Introducing Tide Times Tide Times is a work that is sensitive to, and responds to, its setting on the island of Cramond situated in the Firth of Forth at the mouth of the river Almond. The work comprises of ten audio tracks made up of poetic writing and sounds recorded from the island (listened to via a mobile device and headphones), invitations for play and making found in treasure chests hidden in various locations, and a map to navigate the island (see Figure 2). We present our own subjective exploration as an invitation not to experience Cramond in the way that we did but to reflect upon what we found and discovered. We chose Cramond for its tidalness: it is one of 17 tidal islands in Scotland out of 43 UK tidal islands which can be walked to from the mainland at certain times of the day. Cramond is only accessible by a causeway which is exposed twice daily when the tides are low. The influence of the tide times on our ability to access the island informed the project greatly and gave the piece its title. Neither of us had been to this place before so the experience of exploring it together was an important part of our collaborative process. After visiting five times to make the work, we held an Figure 2: Tide Times map and programme note. 238 Bissell and Cooper: Tide Times invited sharing on the 22nd August between 4:45 and 7:30pm and a second invited sharing on the 29th September between 9am and 1pm. In our email to the first group of participants we stated: ‘We would ask that you please respect the tidalness of this island experience and return before 7pm. If you stay longer than the suggested time you risk getting stranded on the island’. During our research into the island we found multiple stories of visitors getting stranded and having to be rescued by the Queensferry Lifeboats Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), known locally as the ‘Cramond taxi’. In 2011 a visitor to the island, Daniel Defoe from Livingstone, made the news after he and a friend misjudged the tides and were rescued; notable as he shared his name with the eighteenth-century author of the island classic Robinson Crusoe. Only a few weeks before our first sharing the Cramond Island of Punk festival took place and at a party in 2011 announced on the social networking site Bebo over 500 people attended, many of whom had to be rescued when stranded by the incoming tides. In our programme note we acknowledged the many uses the island has had over time and the visitors who have made and continue to make this place: Cramond today is a place for visitors, tourists, dogwalkers, people young and old. It is also a place for insects, seabirds, wildlife and marine life. There used to be sheep, salmon fishing and oyster beds, but not anymore. There have been raves, music festivals, parties and the rescue of late-night revellers who have misjudged the tides, or whose dancing in the undergrowth made them forget the encroaching seawater. There were Romans, a long time ago. Then birdwatchers and scientists, researchers and performance-makers. We have been here. And now you are here too (Tide Times, 2018). We wanted to remind visitors through the affirmation ‘now you are here too’ of the way in which their interaction with the place in this moment of visiting can impact the site. By asking them to be present, open and responsive to this place, they can affect both the site (through the invitations to make, play and explore) as well as the work itself (by co-creating elements of Tide Times). Human interventions are evident Bissell and Cooper: Tide Times 239 all over the island, most notably in the heavily graffitied disused military buildings to the north of the island (which became the location for Derelict) and we ask our participants to ‘not leave any permanent trace’ on this environment (Tide Times, 2018). On our first visit we discovered that Cramond island was not at all remote, as we had anticipated. We describe this experience in the opening of the initial track Crossing 1 (Audio 01) setting up a recurring theme of the work as we autoethnographically reflect on our visits to Cramond. As the participants reach the end of the walkway, they are free to explore the island in their own way. There is no right or wrong path to take; it is in the exploration, the play and the sensory experience that they discover the ‘many treasures’ that Cramond contains. Experiencing Tide Times The work consists of three elements: ‘treasure chests’ hidden on the island containing invitations to play, make and explore (Figure 3) (Video 1 shows participants exploring the boxes); audio tracks made up of recordings of texts written by Laura and Tim, recordings of texts found on the island, and sounds recorded on the island, which were manipulated and reshaped into compositions; and a map detailing the locations of the treasure chests and the areas the audio tracks correspond to. The participants are invited to experience the work through listening to the audio tracks (via a soundcloud playlist or a download link) in their corresponding Audio 01: Crossing 1. 240 Bissell and Cooper: Tide Times Figure 3: Glade Walk box nestling between tree trunks. locations.