Overview - The Age of Uncertainty

'Stormy Waters' is a large-scale open air event set on the Clyde River, Glasgow, on 21/22 July 1995. It will attempt to chart the difficult territory between the past of a city and its future, and how the inhabitants of a major urban area can negotiate with the transformation of the present and sense their involvement in this process.

The Starting Point: Three Bridges (Theoretical)

Crossing the river on a North-South axis are three closely situated bridges - Glasgow Bridge, The Central Rail Bridge and King George V Bridge. Each structure inhabits the landscape with great solidity and purpose, communicating visual strength and a set of values rooted in notions such as civic pride, permanence, weight, industrial strength, gravity, power, neoclassicism, formality, direction, history, connection, monumentality, symmetry, rigidity. They are old, trusted and ignored structures carrying the ceaseless flow of people from North to South and back again and bridging the ceaseless flow of water from East to West. They create an important backdrop for exploring the Glasgow of the past. This was a city which, while housing an ever-changing population, primarily judged itself by its prodigious industrial production over scores of years. Local government, rich industrialists and businessmen built immensely heavy and solid architecture to house or expand their dreams. Much of the city centre is still defined by the style of building constructed in the Victorian era. They still project an unchanging image of dour respectability and the consolidation of power and wealth. They are clearly not visual landmarks which are meant to have a liberating effect on the masses whose work brought about their existence. Yet they tell us that the city has 'done well', has prospered in certain areas and has left permanent traces of progress within the hierarchical relationships of that time.

They remind us of a 'working' past, a time of certainty, a time of neat divisions and clarity of purpose. Whether such a world existed is irrelevant to the fact that it appears that it did.

Where the Three Bridges Installation explores monumental landmarks of the past, mixing subservience with nostalgia, the Stormy Waters event seeks to reinterpret the reality of living in a built environment whose political edges have become blunted and whose centre has become static. It involves the movement of peoples, technology and ideas through a landscape which gradually reveals itself and is transformed in the process.

A visually stunning section of the Clyde, encompassing the Meadowside Granary and Kvaerner Govan shipyards creates the physical panaorama for the events to unfold. Seated in a grandstand on the North Bank of the river...

...the audience awaits the launch.

Arrival and Departure

Physical emigration and immigration is set in motion, vessels depart West for the open sea and new worlds, vessels arrive bringing workers and families from different continents. The lament of five pipers is gradually translated into equivalent Asiatic tonal structures. On the South Bank a Chinese contingent arrive with materials; on a floating middle bank a predominantly migrant workforce arrive with tools. The "South Bankers" set up shop involved in their own activities, seen through shadow projection and live video closeups projected onto the North Bank screens.

The "Workforce" set up a chain of tasks and movement along the middle bank, preparing for construction. Out of a seemingly random series of actions, a pattern, rhythm and repetitiveness of action becomes clear on the middle bank. Activity on the South Bank remains undefined and open (the buying of food, playing mahjong, reading, sorting out lengths of material, etc..)

Five huge head structures (10-20 metres) are revealed floating behind the middle bank-symbolising among many subgroupings Monarchy, Government, the Church, Commerce and a composite central head. Where the four defined heads already appear solid, the central structure is skeletal. The "workforce" commences construction of this, building and wrapping it to a point of solidity. The other heads are sprayed or repaired to likewise reach a point of white, gold or grey neo-classical purity.

Throughout this process images take shape on the heads, they become "carriers of issues", absorbing text and emblems related to their symbolic grouping. The "South Bankers" become static, regulated and involved, feeding materials to the central task area. The work becomes increasingly frenetic and ordered , the completion of each section sucking the energy of the provider.

The Turning Point

The images transit from generalised history to specific present political issues -the destruction of Unions, The Criminal Justice Bill, The Union, Religious Divides, Immigration laws. The workforce split into distinct groups-as the verbal narrative implies the scapegoating of sections of the population.

The groups feed through openings into the sculptured heads, implying images of the Wicker Man and human sacrifice. The heads are set on fire, whether internally or using mechanised flamethrowers. Importantly no human hand should be seen to be assisting the process-the "establishment” structures should be seen to be destroying themselves without the intervention of the public.

Future Scape

Where possible a number of the burning objects should be tugged downstream towards the open sea. The old order is broken down, atomising the symmetry and solidity of the period of construction and consolidation. A new aesthetic emerges; three large wooden marimbas are positioned on the middle bank, each two and a half metres in length. Starting with one percussionist, a rhythm is initiated, each key of the marimba is midi-linked by computer to a colour which will vary in intensity depending on the power of strike and frequency of repetition. As more notes are added in, with the participation of new players, each wearing flaming helmets, an abstract visual representation of the melodic structure is revealed.

Large crane booms are swung over the river from the South Bank each with suspended screens and projectors, electronic beats and phrases gradually feeds into the live percussion mix, building throughout the entire section. The screen configuration has three functions, related to a simultaneous global digital processing of images through the Internet.

All performers are involved in throwing white biodegradable dye into the river, creating a ‘water screen' which can also carry projection from above. Key images (architectural emblems, faces, text) from the show are distributed via the Internet and ISDN lines to five separate continents. Live links allow a process of transfer and retrieval. In some cases pre-existing manipulations are sent back; in the case of text and simple visual structures, the movement will be in real time. The screens will be utilised to show individual global contributions, a 'composite' screen will show the evolution of images in relationship to each other, building on a core programmation by Tomato Design and a 'data' screen will simulate the routing of electronic information throughout the world. The aim to create a virtual community of participants, to make the technological process as transparent as possible for the audience especially through positioning the computer terminals on the North Bank, and to uproot earlier images from their historic associations translating them into new meanings by way of a digital aesthetic.

The South Bank and North Bank are linked together by a series of virtual bridges (lasers, lights, firelights etc.) creating symbolic horizonal connectivity between communities, add a serious selection of Chinese fireworks and the transformation is complete!