“Swannsong” enfolds the listener in a continual transfigured landscape of materiality that still, also, retains its contact or connection to a source: a textured sensuality always somehow verging on mutation and fluidity. Brandon LaBelle, 2011

Swannsong  was  a sound installation at Leeds Crown Court for Evolution Festival 2008. The piece takes its inspiration from the case of Emily Swann, who was convicted there, together with her lover, of the murder of her husband in 1903. The court room and the prison cells below are not in use any more, but are made available to the public at times. Both areas have an amazing atmosphere and are calmly quiet, with only the occasional police siren penetrating through the thick walls. Commissioned by Lumen.

I have documented the process of the work, and made it into a little film, which you can watch below. It combines thoughts and photographs with the “sound track” of the installation and almost feels like a second piece that came out of the installation, 3 years afterwards.

 

– A few images making and setting up the installation: