Vicki Melody

Faraway Voice

Saturday 23rd September

Cornwall has had a disparate importance in the history of communications. Medieval coastal chapels, usually dedicated to St Nicholas, had the safety of seafarers as one of their concerns and showed a light in the window. In time lighthouses were built, and as trade grew, and losses through shipwrecks mounted, further lights filled in the gaps and were built with great difficulty on isolated rocks. Lloyd's signal station was built on Bass Point to enable communications between owners and captains to become quicker. The Lizard was the last point for sending messages to outbound ships of the Royal Navy. Signallers using semaphore would have been based on hilltops used by signal beacons dating back long before the Armada.

The growth of submarine telegraphy speeded communications still further. Cables with copper conductors were brought ashore at Porthcurno, Sennen and kennack. Marconi's experiments with wireless had a major success when is signal from Poldhu was heard at St John's Newfoundland in 1901. Recent progress in telecommunications in Cornwall has been centred at Goonhilly, Britain's first satellite earth station. Also in 1995 a new submarine cable using fibre optics not copper was brought ashore at Porthcurno.

On the 22nd of September, 2 lovers share a fish picnic on Penzance Harbour after just arriving on holiday from the East. Their lunch is ruined, as they are blind folded and piled into the back of two vehicles. They are driven 2 miles apart and kicked out in the middle of nowhere. They take off their blindfolds and look around the unfamiliar territory. By their feet is a pack it contains water, pilchard sandwiches, a torch, a map and a camera phone. The phone beeps it has GPRS technology. We read the message each of us from a distant place ' you are being used in a cruel experiment, where it is up to the consciences of the public to reunite you both, listen out for further instruction'

Somewhere there is a base, where people are deciding our fate we have 12 hours to find each other before the batteries on the phones run out. The public know where we are and can track us online, it is a convergence of online and mobile technologies. The public navigate us in this human game; it is up to them to tell the truth or lie.

Through the use of performance and video Victoria Melody's work attempts to destabilize the familiar, by exposing the systematic processes of day-to day life. Melody is fascinated with that which remains unsaid, unheard, unseen, unfelt; with voicing concerns with and of the world. Irony is used as a tool to make us consider our actions roles and personalities. The interaction between the artist and the audience is one that is complicit and vital to the work. The work creates an apparent trust and respect between the artist and audience, which allows the work to remain honest.

The Millais Gallery with funding support from Arts Council England South East commissioned Melody, to create a new body of work and a publication. She performs Internationally and will be performing for the National Centre for Contemporary Art, St Petersburg.

 
Archive Vicki Melody Faraway Voice Performed at Penlee Park Saturday 23rd September