Learnings from the video work

I had a clear idea and political view regarding the nuclear bunker – in reality a nuclear event monitoring post, albeit in a bunker style – about the futility of it, the manic response to political and jingoistic posturing, from all sides of the spectrum. How these volunteers - 10500 of them - had offered themselves as hostages to fortune and how I wanted their voices to describe both what the work was and how they felt, looking back, about how they felt let down by the establishment.

I set out the video to be firstly a description of the function (ality) of the bunker, it’s role in the defence of the realm, how the role of the bunker, on a practical day to day basis, fitted into a wider and wider panorama of information that, in it’s small but vital way, played in the global Cold War politics. In the second section I wanted to use imagery and words to provide a subversion of their role, how the state had been prepared to sacrifice these volunteers for their own ends, almost as a last vestige of the all powerful state/establishments paternal and patronizing approach to it’s citizens. In an era not yet released from the tyranny of “iron-curtain” diplomacy, the state could and did wield indiscriminate power; but in their own words as volunteers. In a post “wall” world where power at first shifted to the people, only to be replaced by corporate power, the state can no longer hide from these awful truths. Another pertinent reminder of state control of truth has been brought to the surface again with the revelations of the Hillsborough tragedy being finally revealed.

Leaving the politics aside I am not sure I want to make a shorter edit, nor would I want to “sex” it up and make a snappier version. I am sure I could make it shorter, but I feel that the words are important. I had a couple of hours of recording and edited it down to about 9 mins. I was relatively pleased with the editing – though the juxtaposition from the first speaker to the second speaker might have been more imaginative – perhaps a text image introducing each speaker before they started? Not sure, but it doesn’t matter as I probably won’t revisit the project. I think that the images needed to of better quality – this a definitely a workflow issue! I used jpegs sized at 8cm on it’s longest side as a standard output from Lr and I will definitely will use higher resolution and/or Tiffs or better file formats in the future – I will experiment with that. The sound quality I was quite impressed with given that the recorder was placed in various parts of the bunker and Sound booth (Sb) allowed me to balance the audio intuitively, the processing of the audio seemed fairly straightforward as did the editing in Premiere Pro – though I’m still waiting the “How-to” book to arrive.

Outputting the video was also “relatively” straightforward, though quite lengthy into a format that would be acceptable for a “Vimeo” upload. There are issues with the Vimeo upload in that the image “crossovers” have aberrations that have probably come from the using a (relatively) small jpeg. I will experiment with using higher quality images before I get to my next, much more important project, of which I will post some thoughts soon.

I would like to able to get to a workshop to understand some of the boundaries, techniques and opportunities of using video as part of my communication output. I see this an extra mechanism and not as a replacement for photography, which philosophically, at any rate for me, still holds the key to how I want to express myself.

I am really glad I have been through this process, my tutor appears to be comfortable with the finished product (even in it's Vimeo form) and has encouraged me to submit the video with the images and so I will do so. I have also had some very helpful thoughts from some other students and will look to bring them to the next project. Now I suppose I will have to submit the last assignment to P&P - the time for procrastination is over...

p.s. response from the "Tower"

Dear John,

many thanks for the link to your pictures. They are excellent. I hope you enjoyed the day too.

Would you be able to let me have the pictures on high resolution files so we can use them please. They should be shown on our website etc.

Many thanks for your help.

Best wishes,

Annette Gorton

 

Managing Director

Assignment 5 pre-amble

Curious weather conditions, I thought might be a visual analogy for the text

Mono version might offer an extra level of menace

It always appears curious to me when things start to come together almost as a set of random circumstances. I don’t really believe in coincidences in the normal run of things, but I do believe that we can all make connections to apparently random things and then start to make sense from them. The following is how I came upon deciding the brief for Assignment five – People and Place.

I brought Mark into my team around a decade ago, he’s a naturalized Australian having been born and raised in New Zealand, his wife Jen has a similar heritage. We became friends, that friendship was behind the visit to us albeit they were in the UK visiting their daughter, son-in-law and two granddaughters. Randomly we decided to take them to a few places one of which was “Broadway Tower – the highest little castle in the Cotswolds”, which while interesting in itself was not what held my interest. The Tower property also came with it’s own “Nuclear bunker”! During the 1950’s some 1500 and more bunkers were created, usually at sites operated by the Royal Observer Corps, to monitor occurrences in the event of a nuclear episode. These sites were only bunkers in the sense that they were underground – about 20 feet or so – and had radiation protection, support systems for a couple of weeks and (potentially) communication systems to a "cluster" of other “bunkers” in the network feeding vital information to the Ministry of Defence.

The initial visit, purely by chance, held my interest for a lot longer than normal tourist opportunities – Broughton Castle, where Lord Saye personally invited us to have a squint at the upper rooms where a “squint” was incorporated in one of the rooms, the pottery where we saw how they hand painted china, these left me very quickly, but the human story inside these “bunkers” started to grow in me. I found the email address of the Tower and requested permission to take some photographs for my final assignment in the module I was working on; I would of course offer them any images I took at Hi Res’ and they could do what they wanted with them. They seemed delighted with the request and I had a few email exchanges and we agreed that I would turn up, relatively early on Saturday 8^th September where they were planning an “Open-Day”.

I had thought a lot about what the original visit had meant to me, listening to the ex-ROC volunteer (they only use ex ROC volunteer’s, probably because they have a habit of volunteering and therefore don’t cost a lot), what he had to say about the facility, the conditions they worked under and more specifically, the sub-text I discerned about their expectations in the event there was an event. I reflected on what I thought about their sacrifices, the duty of service these men offered – “free-of-charge”, how dispensable they appeared to be in the great game of war, how futile their efforts would have been at the end of the world as we knew it then. I wanted to somehow weave that narrative into my set of pictures. Essentially I wanted the brief to be about how this bunker appeared to the general public today – the owner wants to have a display board of my pictures to entice the public to pay for a visit to the site a hundred yards or more from the Tower – but I wanted it to also be able to portray the futility of their contribution to the “war-effort”. How that their sole purpose was to detect, record and inform on the detonation of a nuclear explosion in order that our government could ensure a retaliatory action designed to obliterate as many Russians as possible – WW1 trench warfare mindset to it’s limit – whilst the politicians, safe in one or more of their subterranean domiciles could live in sublime isolation for the duration of the half life of Strontium 90 before reappearing to breakfast in a Nuclear wasteland some 30 years or more in a post apocalyptic future.

I was met by the owner on the morning of the 8^th September, he wanted to ask what I had planned, I said that I wanted to try and capture the place as best I could, he seemed less interested in my motives and suggested that what he wanted was a set of pictures that enticed people into the bunker i.e. pay for the privilege. He was concerned that I didn’t provide too much detail, so that the potential visitors couldn’t say “well I’ve seen that now, no need to bother”. I found myself thinking at the time he was talking how that resonated with how I felt these ROC volunteers were treated in the past. How the Government never provided training above and beyond the use of the three instruments vital to the role of the bunker. The Government saw fit to provide enough rations for up to two weeks, whereupon they were informed that the radiation levels would be 1/1000^th of what it was when the bomb was detonated, but they still had to go outside to fuel the generators, charge the batteries and for other duties. A one thousandth was still ample enough to ensure a slow lingering death or genetic problems should they ever have the chance for reproduction again (with whom would be a more pertinent question). They knew that they were doomed, the speakers on the day had that awareness and it was talked about during their talks when I visited. And anyway, it might have been 1/1000^th of one explosion, but the nature of the military mind at the time was to annihilate the enemy and there would have been multiple explosions, 1/1000^th of what level?

So the analogy of what the Government had provided these volunteers and the way in which the owner today wanted to provide less than the whole picture played on my mind as I went about the project of collecting images. It was a special day, some original journals had come to light that were written by one of the volunteers and they were being returned. Hand written in MoD log books, these entries showed the banality of everyday life for these ROC volunteers, about maintenance of the equipment, about meetings to decide rosters, about fund raising activities, about social events. This "special day" made it possible to view more than would normally be on view, at least above ground but it also made it much busier than I had hoped for. The owner though was concerned that there weren’t enough people coming through the gate – and rightly so from his perspective.

I listened to the various hosts on the day, how they not only told their stories, but how they had reflected both contemporaneously and now, after all those years after the MoD told them, usually by a telephone call to the cluster leader that their services were no longer required – which is how those journals came to be thrown away in disgust at their treatment – and that the bunkers are now either derelict or buried, as is "Cold War" theory today. We now have another international body corporate enemy to deal with - and we understand them even less that we did the Russians.

The bunker in Broadway isn’t as it was, the owner has turned it into a museum of contemporary paraphernalia loosely associated with the function and era of these bunkers. The instruments are real, the uniforms are real and the volunteers, what remain of them, are very real reminders of a past where the sense of duty outweighed their more parochial responsibilities. The bunker is a fine example of what they were like, it has stood the test of time due to a lack of moisture ingression and the local farmer herding his long-horn cattle in the field adjacent to the site, keeping would be interested parties at bay. I hope it doesn’t become a trivial memento of these volunteers past, as I feel it will mock the trivial value that our Government at the time vested in their efforts.

Storm across the Vale of Evesham, with sheep.

Storm across the Vale of Evesham, with sheep.
Image taken from above the nuclear bunker at Broadway in Worcestershire. Photograph taken on August 30th 2012, purposely drained of colour.

The following is the list I made in Leeds of the various aspects of the nuclear bunker that I could include in assignment five:

Outside,

Cover,

Recessed land,

Spotting point,

Entrance,

Steps up/down,

Radio,

Camera,

Bunk beds,

Toilet,

Spotter’s charts,

Darts board,

Doseometer(?),

ROC coordinates,

Board games,

Written records,

Some thoughts on each:

Outside: Immediately outside the entrance to the bunker itself is a self contained area, probably still under the regulations of the Official Secrets Act and this area contains other bits and pieces: the cover for the ladder, the recessed land where the spotters used to have their equipment that looked for enemy aircraft – the “Spotting Point”. A prefabricated hut that was also used by the ROC as they upgraded from laying on the sod. A camera, an aerial mast assembly, a hand cranked siren, similar to an air raid warning siren. A fence; a track that leads from the public land through a lockable gate and a beautiful view across the Cotswold and Vale of Evesham.

Inside: the vertical ladder with minimal room, the toilet at the bottom of the ladder, the entrance to the main room. The ephemera of solitude and boredom – board (bored) games, darts board (already I am thinking of the randomness of the potential of a nuclear strike, much as my darts expertise), a chart will all the localities of the other nuclear bunkers and their associated clusters. The bunkers were arranged into clusters of about 4 or 5 with a “Main” bunker to operationally supervise – all the “main” bunkers linked up to a central control point – I think this was Royal Air Force control – and then to Whitehall. The operational linkage was provided by the then GPO, though they say BT now – I am wondering now about how that linkage on a national scale could be undertaken as we have “hived-off” vast sections of the infrastructure to any investor capable of filling the national coffers with the right amount of money. Bunk beds, three men normally, though as this is kitted out as a “Main” it would be intended for up to 4 men, so I suspect they slept in shifts. A Doseometer(?) which measures the amount of personal radiation.

I do not want to subvert the efforts of these men. It might be said that they were prepared to sacrifice themselves for their country, and I believe that to be true. However I can’t drag myself away from the thought that it was part of the conspiracy of hypocrisy that stemmed from the War Office (or in their Orwellian styled newspeak name – The Ministry of Defence) that we were “doing all we could to protect our country from the Soviet threat”. The Americans needed an Eastern front and were quite happy for their national threat to be in Europe; Minute-men could fly over Europe if needed and post their special message to the Kremlin. The Soviets probably felt no real threat from the British, nor from any individual European nation west of the Urals, but it made bombastic imperialist posturing sense for the UK Government to make political play of being a Super Power – especially after the humiliations of both world wars, when the UK and it’s Empire was seen for what it was, a spent force. The MoD must surely have known that if the balloon went up, especially with the nuclear technology of the time i.e. very dirty and very big; that vast swathes of the UK would be uninhabitable for hundreds if not thousands of years. The Vale of Evesham would be, in all likelihood, a softly glowing green ember. I remember how radioactive the hill sheep of North Wales were after Chernobyl went into melt down, and how the UK Government at the time jumped onto the moral high ground to distance themselves from any fall-out that might have been engendered with their constituents.

So, back to the Assignment and a brief that makes sense to the notes in the course literature and, above all, that makes sense to me. I want see if the sense of futility comes across again, especially as I will have plenty of time to talk with the volunteers. I want to express the utilitarian nature of the objects that are situated in the bunker, the sense of space that exists in the 800 cubic feet or so of encumbered air. But I suspect that there wouldn’t be much call for that as a narrative. There is, as one might expect, a lot of stuff on the web regarding nuclear bunkers, from the anoraks who list them to the serious historian trying to place them in the latter half of the twentieth century, a lot of trivia as well as more rounded research. My brief will not be to subvert the efforts of the volunteers, but to record – as neutrally as I can, the space these people worked in, the trivial banality of the functional demands, but also to try and imbue a sense of the dread circumstance they were there to detect, record and alarm us about.

I will write a brief in the coming two days. I will be in the hole on Saturday morning.

Down the hole

There were a number of things that became self evident as I began to get my thoughts together as a result of attending the Leeds study weekend. A real possibility of finding the route to assignment five in P&P and also another personal project that I hope to get to soon - an altogether different prospect!

The contemporaneous notes I made whilst listening to the presentation by Jesse Alexander suggested to me that I had enough to use at this site to develop a concept for the brief as required by the assignment.

A twenty foot ladder leads to an underground chamber 7' X 16' X 7' high

The images above are graphics that I have found that provide a "vision" of the type of environment that I have already experienced, having visited there a short while ago. I have contacted the management team and they are happy for me to come along and have photographs taken, especially as I have said they are welcome to any that I produce with unlimited rights (as long as I get accreditation).

I think it is worthwhile to write down my feelings that I had when I visited the bunker last week - we had some friends over from Australia and took them to a variety of places and we all thought it was very interesting. At one level it was intriguing, how the government of the day during the early 1950's decided, as a reaction to the developing Cold War, to instigate a network of nuclear bunkers and at the sites that had been developed for enemy aircraft for use by the Royal Observer Corps. Some 1564 bunkers were dug into the ground across the UK, most are now derelict - though I have recently seen one for sale on eBay for £9000! Freehold.

Pin-hole camera (white) behind which is the trap door to the nuclear bunker.
To the rear is the older ROC enemy aircraft spotting hut, set up during the second war.
This camera is part of the system known as the "Ground Zero Indicator", which has other overtones today.

On the other hand however I suppose the overriding emotion that I felt was futility. Here, in the concrete box twenty feet below ground were up to 4 men in a room too small to swing a cat in; sat in discipline waiting for the end of the world. The rations they were dealt would keep three men going for a maximum of two weeks, their protection level from radio active blast was 1000 - whilst the domestic house was rated at 25 - the air vents were sloped downwards to reduce the effect of radioactive fallout contamination. A measuring device would inform them how big the nuclear blast was, the pin-hole camera would tell where the bomb was detonated. These recordings, should they have ever been recorded, would probably not have been read by anyone in any case. In the unlikely event that these observers survived the attack and lasted the two weeks inside they would have had to decide between starvation and radioactive sickness as they exited their hole, to a world devastated beyond anything Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced. Their homes would be ruins if still in existence, their families would, in all likelihood be dead or dying from horrific injuries. Their collective sense of duty to Queen and country can only be admired, but what dread thoughts must have coursed through their veins as they got call-out after call-out to man the post. Through the late '50's up to and including the "Bay of Pigs" crisis when the threat was palpable, what did these people think about? These men of the Royal Observer Corps would potentially be the witness, the observers no less, of their own fate, seeing the explosion on their instruments before the blast devastated the area around them, hoping for a change of wind that might take the fallout to other parts of the country or the world. I tried to understand how they were called to action, how they took to their posts and apparently they would be called, usually on the telephone, much in the same way as "Lifeboat men" have done and still do today. They had a special position that bound their employers to allow them to leave work whenever the call came and for the duration of their duty, fearing the approach of the Tupolev . I suspect as with  Lifeboat men they had some practise calls, but through the early life of these bunkers the calls would be real, as the Russian nuclear airborne fleet would continue to press the nerves of the West by flying closer and closer to Nato's borders. Any call could have been the "one". Maybe they had time to say goodbye to their loved ones, their families, their wives and girlfriends; maybe they didn't or chose not to.

Toast and fat chips in Leeds

I had expected a good deal from the weekend away in Leeds, the agenda had been well thought through I had thought, some exposure of personal work – which I always think is worth doing – visiting professionals, college tutors and the chance to talk with pears and colleagues who have, in the main, only appeared to us as avatars to date.

The first evening didn’t auger well, the planned trip for six to “Toast” turned into eight which I though wouldn’t be an issue as “Toast” boasted of it’s friendly atmosphere. However the number of decibels inside the “bistro” was only exceeded by the number of people trying to shout above the music system. We left and found another place, which was more conducive. Of course in earlier student days the former would have been chosen over the latter – but we didn’t have the luxury of time, there was an urgency about our purpose driven by time. The group seemed to gel very quickly, spontaneous conversations on the common topic were the norm’ and very unstilted, open, candid, fun and informative. Lots of laughter too, usually a good sign.

The first day started a bit slowly, Peter’s style seemed at first ponderous, but I was glad of it as it let me think about things more, stopped me racing ahead and it allowed the students to participate more.

Mischa Henner’s presentation was for me a revelation. To see and hear how he conceived his work and then implemented it was extremely enlightening. It would have been easy for him to have dwelt on the controversy he has attracted through his projects, but whilst he didn’t shy away from it he didn’t glory in it either. I was very moved by his work on the google street view work – how the randomness of the “capture” of the women on the streets seemed to draw narrative from me with such ease that I found it quite disconcerting; and I was amazed at the beauty of his portraits.  Henner’s attitude to appropriation was almost 180 degrees opposite to that provided by the OCA and Joe Fox. I’m not saying either is right or wrong. I will almost certainly still continue to request permission from artists before using their work, but I will reflect on Henner’s comments and process. It seemed at little sad though about how much effort has gone into the work and how his sales are so low… much to ponder.

Equally inspiring, though from a completely different perspective was Peter Rudge from Duckrabbit. Whilst Henner is finding a paucity of viewers for his work, Duckrabbit’s main currency is audience delivery. Photo videos and training on documentary projects are the stock by which Duckrabbit trades in. Apart from his infectious enthusiasm, which I am sure has meant a surge in sales of digital sound recorders; Rudge imparted a genuine passion for his work. The three videos he played were in equal measure moving, amusing, informative and enlightening. I am sure there will be some students planning some excursions into video, or at least photo video work on the back of this presentation, I have two projects in mind; one to compliment assignment five P&P and another, a more deeply personal project, as a precursor to documentary which I hope to start at level two shortly.

Work by Peter Dench at the White Cloth Gallery

The presentations on books was too short, whilst we had good discussions there was too little time to generate enough discussion around the various themes expounded in them. It was very useful to see the various styles and possibilities and I think Jesse did a good job to open up the possibilities of differing book styles and how they might work in different contexts, but the break out groups didn’t really have time to explore the themes in the texts we looked at.

The presentations, especially on Semiotics and major projects from the tutors were very valuable and again, I am sure Amazon’s book sales have notched a little subsequently. The “portfolio’ session which I felt had troubled most students before coming to Leeds was yet another area where the discussions were very valuable to, I think, all in the group. I think that exposing one’s work to peers and, in this case, tutors can only help the individual as much as the group.

Work by Simon Roberts at the White Cloth Gallery

Work by Zed Nelson at the White Cloth Gallery

An added bonus was a suggestion from Tim to have a look at the White Cloth Gallery - about 5 mins walk from the hotel, where there was work by Peter Dench, Zed Nelson and Simon Roberts - terrific!

Peter at the White Cloth Gallery

I left with many things rattling around in my head. It was very inspirational, the comments shared between the cadre subsequently have all been positive about new work, directions and motivations. I had a lot of expectations for the weekend and sometimes that can be a burden if they are not met. It did work for me on many levels. I now feel part of a community, I feel a camaraderie with those who were there, the shared experience that I feel I am likely to draw on in the coming months and maybe years.

Again I would like to thank Penny, Eileen, Peter, Jesse, Mark and the OCA for their hard work and dedication to making this happen and for also introducing me to what I can only assume is a local delicacy that of the fattest chips I have ever seen let alone tasted (now someone will tell they were in fact regular but shaped roast potatoes!). I would recommend that the OCA find a way to ensure that students organize this on a regular basis.