……geological context of this resource and placing the viewer in this speculative future – one where we have to find new ways to interact with ‘resources’ we have exploited….. 

very very rough draft of a possible story… one where the reader is dropped at a site and makes their way across it (hence the view finder) as if in a sort fo visual reality tour…. they gradual extract information about the carbonscape through autographic signs inscribed into this site of ‘waste’.

fiction / story / scientific journal / ecology guide / map / VR / manual into cultural and material network

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havnt a clue what kind of cover I want yet… am into both the very macro and abstract patting of the material of spoil… and the line diagrams that get used to infer a spoil hill in all the old maps…

WEARING TH PAST IN THE FUTURE….

not quite sure what these objects are yet…

we may one day turn to finding tangible ways to access materials have evolved networks?

or are these objects something that could speculatively appear amongst the spoil and throw off a cultural extractor… make us believe its a ceremonious celebratory objects?

connecting the body to the physical and cultural materially of the carbonscape

we already are wearing coal… we are that close to it… the body as another interface to connect to the carbonscpae.. 

turning the objects into sensual objects. transition the spoil from waste to resource of information and experience… form expeiremncess of the visceral agency of coal… expressing its material qualities from the pile of its ‘waste’… 

coming across slag.. the rare remnants of the coking process, one might think its was as precious as gold

the reason for wanting to creat experiences of coal that are visceral and toxic… to infer how our current relationship to these materials is visceral and toxic, we just arn’t sensitive enough to it… rendering sensitivity to material qualities 

(collective action around coal stemming from its physical weight and materiality… how can I form new interactions and collective imaginations around coal through object materiality forged from the spoil heap interface…)

Sketching out designs:

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WORKSHOPSSSSS

begun by speaking to different technicians and figuring out what metal to use to try and make wearables from the materials I had made a mimicked and collected… all things around and within the spoils of colliery sites

I really like the brass because it’s also a kind of hybrid, much like lots of the allows yet with brass you never really know whats in it or how much… a material that will last yet is forever a reminder of human impact and alterations, but like spoil is.

I really like the fire stains from silver soldiering… wondered if I could keep them as opposed to pickling it off… should these objects be contextualised as being found amongst the heap… their wear visible yet still indicative of being loved and sensual objects?

one way in which i could keep this marks but put more care into their creation is through hanging them amongst the fumes of ammonia. trust it blue

I have begun working on earrings made with the the resin slag disks of material… I originally cut sections of brass to their size so that I could mount them on these plates… kinda reminiscent of those two part jam earrings in simple bases that are vintage (i should look up what era their from? would think flappy 20’s but could be so much older)… but anyway, because I liked the ammonia effect so much I have soldiered on some silver patches using the flux so that I can then hang them also in ammonia so theres a kinda coherent aesthetic… sort of oxidised and aged…

sadly the gold plated wire I ordered to go on the backs as a way to hang them from an ear hole isn’t quite right and I waste able to soldier it on… I am tested a type of glue over night but it isn’t as good my any means…

collecting lots of very close up footage using a macro lens as the visual element to a sort of introductory / trailer esq film…

want to use the reversed and vastly slowed down bird noise as the backdrop to the narrated film… thinking about how other life forms such as geology and deep time formations like strums of material will be existing on planes of time unfathomable to us… try distort the bird noise to infer this familiar yet totally totally foreign conception of temporality

got up at 5am to walk to the spoil heap to get some especially loud down chorus noises from the inhabitants of the site…

iron slag is produced when coking coal aids the tradition from iron ore into iron and steel. For some reason there was an abundance of these sorts of materials across the heap…. as if exposing a hybridised layer of the earths most accessible stratum.

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begun creating a cabinet of these objects… and archive of spoil through its found geology…

not taking this idea any further but the objects exists. Originally I had planned to film myself rubbing up against the ground to remove the ‘precious’ remediating stones but now I think may not bother as the project has gone in a different direction

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recorded the whole conversation. I spoke to both her and her husband who had worked in the limestone quarries. One very interesting thing her husband, Frankie, said was that when world war two broke, those that worked in agriculture and coal mining were liable to stay working to carry on the industries that underpinned both the nation and the war energy… whereas those that worked in the queries had to sign up. Frankie said that lots of his friends switched to going down themes in order to avoid going into the army. What horrible options…

They showed me some really beautiful objects from the mining history in their families. These included:

brass disks the minors would sue to check in and out of shift so that there was a physical signifier of whether they made it up at the end of each day

a clock that was given to a minor when they retired along with a certificate, Cherry’s father did 52 years and eventually died of a lung condition not very long after

lamps that the minors would take down with them – one had a safety contraption and would be used by a supervisor who would go down first to check that there wasn’t risk of explosion

the last objects were so cool – they were gas lit head lights where the flamed contraption would strap onto the front of the hat f the minor.