Taping the Stones

A work made in Lyme Regis, Dorset and Wolverhampton, over the summer of 2020 and shared as part of the Ritual Weekender curated by Birmingham Opera Company.

‘Taping the stones’ is a video performance which presents the speculation that environmental elements such as stones are capable of storing traces of human thoughts or emotions, an idea seen in ‘The Stone Tapes’ a 1972 TV play written by Nigel Kneale.  This idea stems from 19th century attempts to explain supernatural phenomena, with ghosts and memories analogous to tape recordings, recorded on objects. The artist collected artefacts from visits to the shoreline with her family; rocks, sea glass, fossils, and observed the beach rituals of families and fossil hunters, interested in the parallels between collective memory and fossils.  The idea of the ‘witches stone’ became a central motif, a stone with a hole all the way through thought to act as a portal, or protection, in superstitious customs. Bringing these artefacts home, they became the centrepiece to a newly created ritual, utilizing old found photographs of women sat on rocks, to ‘conjure’ these experiences from the rocks.