Following its recent tour to the Unfolding Practice symposium at London College of Fashion (UAL), – where it was performed as part of the paper Withdrawn from use: for voice, turntable and pause – Silence on Loan was politely returned, signed for and slipped back on the shelf at Winchester School of Art Library
It has been five years since the publication of Silence on Loan, and to commemorate this wooden anniversary, the annual performance will take place as part of the Into the Fold Artists Book Fair at Winchester School of Art Library. As part of this two-day fair (15th/16th March), I will be performing Silence on Loan at 2:30 on Friday 15th March. This year, silence will be broadcast live to air, via a micro-FM transmission. Immediately received through a small array of dysfunctional radios, silence will be dispersed amongst the library stacks.
Silence and radio have history. The dead air of radio was the favoured medium of communication for the electronic voice phenomena of spirit voices. One ethereal voice declaring in an accent, which I like to imagine was somewhere between the vaudeville of Frankie Howard and Carry On of Kenneth Williams: “What a rascal, switch on the radio!” Raudive claimed that radio was so popular on the other side: ‘various groups of voice entities […] operate[d] their own [radio] stations.’
The transmission of Silence on Loan through the electrical elsewhere of radio, augments the fragility of the silence broadcast; a silence arriving from somewhere and possibly somewhen other than here.
All those who are there (here) to listen and those who’s listening the silence borrows, will receive a free paper wristband bearing the ISBN of publication. And a special edition commemorative badge will be free to all those wearing a badge from a previous year’s performance of Silence on Loan.
As part of the Into the Fold Artists Book Fair I will have a table of commemorative limited editions, in the form of wooden postcards, ISBN prints, and ‘I am not listen-ing’ pin badges. There will also be limited-edition cassettes, seance cards, multiples and original prints from Listen the Waves and other sound works on paper.
A ‘live’ diptych recording of rehearsal tapes for the performed Mare Street Variation of the text piece: I am not imaging the sound of these words, you are, is now available on Bandcamp. The Mare Street Variation (for typewriter, cassette and an empty house), was intended to be performed last September, as part of the exhibition Din, at 195 Mare Street, Hackney, London . Sadly, due to illness, I was not able to take part.
However, I decided that a record of my not performing should still be available. I had rehearsed the performance at home, using two portable mono recorders to simultaneously document and duplicate the action. The unreliable nature of these obsolete recorders, meant there were quite a few rehearsals, each taped over its failed predecessor, leaving both tapes puckered with sudden magnetic bursts of sound and silence. I released these two tapes as a limited edition cassette diptych: on side ‘R’ of each cassette, a record of the rehearsals for the performance; on side ‘P’, an unintentionally blank ferrous record of a performance that never took place. Packaged in the shredded papery remains of the typed texts and including a free I am not listening conference card, these two original tapes have now been sold and delivered.
Before they were dispatched, I gave a private performance of the rehearsal tapes in the room where they took place. I created a stereo digital recording of this performed mono duet and this new Mare Street Variation is now available to be listened to and downloaded on Bandcamp.
In early September I was invited to be part of the exhibition Din at 195 Mare Street in Hackney, London. Built in 1697, 195 Mare Street is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Hackney and was once home to the Elizabeth Fry’s Society Refuge for women leaving prison. The Quaker and reformer Elizabeth Fry had played a significant part in prison reform and between 1860 and 1913, Mare Street provided refuge for thousands of young women recently released from prison.
In 1913, the house become home to the New Lansdowne Liberal and Radical Club, a working men’s club, but subsequently fell into disrepair. In 2022, the house was finally bought and will be restored and turned into a domestic home and community arts centre.
In its current state of vacancy, the house on Mare Street bares mute and beautiful witness to its prior dwellings. Abandoned layers of paint peal quietly, exposing the temporality of place. Whilst the karaoke of floorboards allows our steps to walk with the ghosts of absent footfall.
195 Mare Street. Photos: Sebastiane Hegarty
At home in the temporary refuge of this peeling landscape, Din, curated by the artist Matt Harding, (aka: The Thames Submarine) offered an exhibition of sound and its absence. For two days at the end of summer, silent sounds dwelled behind the doors and windows of Mare Street. The exhibition, which included film, painting, sculpture and installation, opened with a concert of sound performances, including Angharad Davies and Matt Harding, performing around the silent sonic gaits and characterful strides of Sue Harding’s collection of Foley shoes. Other contributing artists included Maria Chavez, Lynn Loo, Dion Kitson and OyamaO (see poster for full list).
Foley Shoes: Sue and Matt Harding
My own contribution was a performed variation of the text piece, “I am not imagining the sound of these words you are.” In keeping with Mare Street’s association with Elizabeth Fry, penal reform and refuge, this Variation for Cassettes and an Empty House, would occur in isolation. Behind a door closed-quietly-to, the performance would only be visible through the jar of the door and the hole of its missing lock. The percussive rhythm of the typewriter’s metal letters falling on proofing paper would be pronounced in the acoustics of the space and heard through the grade II listed resonance and wooden tapes of the walls walnut graining panels
“I am not imagining…” Limited Edition Audiocassette. 2023. Sebastiane Hegarty
The performance (lasting approximately six-minutes) would be simultaneously recorded and duplicated via a pair of obsolete portable cassette recorders and the performed text produced pinned to the back of the door. It would be recorded on two C15 ‘prison’ audiocassettes – clear plastic cassettes sealed without the small screws that enable the cassette to be dismantled. Once over the sound would be rewound and its sonic remains replayed and performed again. The cassettes would then be immediately released as a limited edition of two. On the other side of each cassette, is a simultaneous recording of the performance rehearsals made at my home in Winchester.
Din Exhibition Photo: Matt Harding
Sadly, the day before the exhibition opened, I became ill and was not able to attend or perform at the opening. But Matt placed my written instructions for the performance, and his own portable cassette player in the window seat of the room where the performance was to take place. This silent obituary for a performance that never took place, was not only very kind but also an appropriate variation for a text that sounded in the imagination.
I decided that the record of my not performing was a form of taking part and decided to release the unrecorded performance as a limited-edition cassette diptych; on one side the recorded rehearsals for the performance; on the other side, the blank tape of a sound [and its record] that never took place.
“I am not imagining…” Limited Edition Audiocassette. 2023. Sebastiane Hegarty
“I am not imagining …” is now available for purchase. The tapes can be purchased as either individual cassettes or as the original diptych, carefully packaged in the shredded paper remains of the typing rehearsals. Leave a message if you’re interested.
Fitting the cassette To insert the cassette, push the cassette compartment button (8) in the direction of the arrow. The cassette compartment then opens. Insert the cassette with the full spool on the right, the empty spool on the left, then close the compartment door.
In the summer of ‘78, on the double-decked 500 bus from Lime Street to Kirkby terminus, Hilary slipped me a cassette. A C60 audiocassette.
In 2022, some forty-five years later, I was contacted by Phil Wrigglesworth, Editor and Art Director of Left Cultures, who asked if I would be interested in contributing a ‘personal story’ for their next edition. Left Cultures is a unique publication, a contemporary space to champion all kinds of voices on the Left, publishing ‘other’ narratives, which are at once, culturally diverse, and left leaning.
I was delighted to be invited and excited to contribute.
This morning I awoke to the postal thud and seductive whiff of fresh ink on heavy matt paper: an advance copy of Left Cultures 2had arrived. An exquisite ‘lexicon’ of left bent cultural stories, that smells good, feels good, and ‘fizzes’ with imagery, ideas, and energy: From the sartorial slogans of Johnny Hannah’s Crass inspired ‘pay no more than £3’ workwear, to Rachael Miles/Bessa unpicking the politics of woodchip and the Scary Monsters of David Beech’s scalpel splice through the counter-culture of Bowie’s lyrical landscapes and the artist-run organisational 'model’ of Punk.
Throughout the 50 stories and 128 pages, music appears a conspicuous and common agent of change. So too, my own story: On the 500 bus Hilary slipped me a cassette. But it’s not just the lyrics or energy of music that is important, it’s also the cultural exchange and community that forms through sharing and experiencing music.
'On the 500 bus...' in: Left Cultures 2 with visual instructions by Colum Leith
The chance meeting of my encounter with Hilary, was spontaneously arranged through mass unemployment and the Youth Opportunity Programme (YOP). Hilary had been offered the career opportunity of becoming a part-time Library Assistant at my school, Brookfield Comprehensive in Kirkby, Knowsley, Nr. Liverpool. The library was small and impoverished with a predominantly disengaged clientele: as a career opportunity I am not sure Brookfield library knocked very loudly.
On her days off, Hilary (Steele) was more creatively [un]employed as a photographer for the Liverpool Punk scene around Eric’s; the nightclub where the Sex Pistols performed in ‘76. She was also friends with Liverpool’s proto-punk super group: Big in Japan(Jayne Casey, Holly Johnson, Budgie, Big Bill Drummond, Ian Broudie). In addition to the C60 cassette slipped into my hands on the 500, Hilary got me a signed copy of, From Y to Z and Never Again (Zoo, 1978), the posthumous extended play epitaph of Big in Japan. In a rare out of school meeting, Hilary took me to Probe Records where she tried to persuade Pete Burns to sell me a copy of Devo’s infamous bootleg, Workforce. Notorious for his acerbic approach to customer service, Pete of course, refused.
Record shops were critical spaces, where you had to earn the respect of the counter. Music was not easy to find or get, you had to listen out for it in the reviews and classifieds of the NME or discover it in the sleeve notes of other albums. There was of course the cultural antennas of John Peel and Phil Ross (Radio Merseyside), but it was the musical rumours of friends and the magnetic contraband of mixtapes that proffered an ear into the unknown.
The copyright infringing, ferric hour that Hilary took the time to curate and tape, spliced together the eponymous punk of Big in Japan, the Day-Glo dystopia of X-Ray Spex, the Handsworth Revolution of Steel Pulse and sparse, melancholy guitar of Link Wray & Robert Gordon’s cover of Fire. Gloriously eclectic Hilary’s mixtape wound my ear toward a music in which the personal mingled with the political.
Sometimes the Tape Stops. Fold-out Xerox cassette cover (1981)
C30 C60 C90 go Off the radio I get constant flow Hit it, pause it, record and play Turn it, rewind and rub it away
C30, C60, C90 Go by Bow Wow Wow (1980)
The audiocassette was a cheap, democratic and yet revolutionary medium. Through its ability to reproduce, rewind, mix, erase and share, we become the curators of our audible and erasable self. We could share, make and release music. At art school I set up a semi-fictional record label (Starving Panda Records) curating, duplicating and releasing, Sometimes the Tape Stops; a C90 compilation of sound and music made by friends and other students, many of whom formed bands, became musicians and sound artists for the duration of the tape and then split and retired back into painting, sculpture or ceramics. The audiocassette created a community, and a creative culture of sharing. You didn’t sell a mixtape; it was part of a gift economy, made to be shared, to be given away. We made tapes for friends, for people we loved, for people we left and those who left us. For people we met on the 500 bus
Hilary left the career opportunity of Brookfield Comp behind and I headed to Wolverhampton Poly to study Fine Art. I've searched, but sadly I can’t find Hilary’s cassette, but I did discover that a book of her photographs, The Crucial Years - Eric's Liverpool 1977-1979, was published by Hanging Around Books (Sadly sold out).
The tale of Hilary’s cassette, accompanied by the exquisite line of Colum Leith’s visual instructions is available in Left Cultures 2. You can order a copy here or purchase it in person at cool independent bookshops all over the UK.
Care of tapes Please do not put your cassettes on top of central heating radiators or any other heat source. The tape will become deformed and useless.
sebastiane hegarty 
