
Layers of sound : overlapping histories
As the sun descends, shadows of disused smoke stacks spread like fingers across a city as a reminder of a forgotten past. Mortar crumbles under the pressure of green regrowth, machines red with rust stand proud as they slowly decay under drops of water. Materials once representing progress and order, descend into chaos. Signs of recent activity; spray cans, beer bottles, burnt paper, cigarette butts, window shards and thrown stones. The echoes of industrialism imbued in the cold, damp, graffiti smattered walls. Mould and spray paint acetone, concrete dust and ash permeate the air. Light struggling to break through, stairs leading only to detritus: sound is our only guide to navigate the space.
Snatching Time takes sound from interactions with the materials of postindustrial ruins, captured from objects found during urban exploration in the east German city of Leipzig. Vast skeletal industrial buildings remain after the population declined then rebuilt. The original machinery stands along with scattered documents, evidence of abandonment. By engaging with the space it can be reactivated, and by resurrecting reverberations it ceases to be lost to the silence of time. If just for a moment.
