SUBHUMAN

Between April and September 2019 Anna Braithwaite worked as composer-in-residence at Chatham Historic Dockyard creating two films with collaborator Matt Rowe and a live performance aboard the HM Submarine Ocelot during her time there.

Chatham Dockyards fell silent on March 31st, 1984, the day of the site’s formal decommissioning. Over the intervening decades, sounds have slowly returned to overwrite the fading echoes from the docks’ many years of service. As the first composer-in-residence here, Anna searched for those lost sounds and found some of her own. She investigated the sparse histories of the widowed women of the Ropery and talked with the men who were confined in the submarine’s claustrophobic intimacies.

These are the images and sounds she imagined for them, her offerings. An encoded communication for the submariners who were never there. A requiem for the women of the factory floor.

Rope cycle

SUBHUMAN

GIG ABOARD HM SUBMARINE ‘OCELOT’ - 26.09.19

IMAGES FROM THE RESIDENCY

Images by Matt Rowe.

AUGMENT

I am now researching how to create a VR interpretation of the performance captured my residency film Rope Cycle. Using Unreal Engine I aim to create an immersive, playable sound world whilst artist (and regular collaborator) Matt Rowe recreates an avatar of me performing within a virtual recreation of the original location. I am investigating how ‘players’ might influence/recompose the music themselves as they move through triggers in the space and more generally how the performance will translate into the VR environment.

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

This work has been supported by: Hi3 Network [London South Bank University in partnership with Canterbury Christ Church University, Creative Folkestone, Maidstone Studios and Screen South]

Supported by Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and the Master Ropemakers