Summoning Shadows

This research, commissioned as part of the citywide “Festival Of The Mind”, was disseminated in our work, “Summoning Shadows”, for the “Do It Thissen”, exhibition celebrating the music, political and cultural scene in Sheffield between 1979-82. This period was famous for an outburst of creative energy in the independent D.I.Y. ethic of music production that has now been replaced by global market forces and digital distribution. The work for the exhibition included a live performance and installation. The sound work focused on the city’s musical and industrial spectres and was an experiment in hauntology. It was originated by capturing the physical characteristics of remnants of that period such as vinyl static, turntable vibration and analogue tape as sources. We also used digital emulators of analogue synthesizers to bring a contemporary nod to the past. Film projection was a particular feature of Sheffield’s live music scene. We contextualized the sound by replicating a lo-fi approach to film-making as a means of contextualizing the sound and specifying the importance of a sense of place rather than a nostalgic event archived in the anonymity of digital space.