Whistle (Scotland)

The Artistic Reflections publication will be available from June 2017 For more information, or to order a copy, please contact: susechristie@googlemail.com Designed by Marco Scerri, edited by Susan Christie and supported by Creative Scotland Steve Messam Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park 186,340 hectares Project website: www.mistandmountains.wordpress.com Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park was designated in 2002 and covers 720 square miles of outstanding landscape adjacent to the central belt of Scotland. It is within an hour’s drive of over 50% of Scots and is the most heavily used area of countryside for recreation, with around four million visitors per annum. Steve Messam, the artist selected to work within the park says, "I like working with landscapes and creating temporary works which peel back the layers of narratives they're made from.” He was particularly interested in the historical remnants of other ages and uses, like the gold mine near Balquidder or coming across disused roads or old segments of fences on top of high mountains. Because of the daunting size of the park, Messam concentrated on the north east corner, the area furthest away from large centres of population. With a park ranger he walked the path of the old railway through Glen Ogle, now part of a national cycle route. It runs over some impressive stone viaducts, and Messam was drawn to the idea of the lost sounds of the steam trains that rst brought visitors from the cities. In the course of the residency, he proposed installing steam train whistles over eighteen miles of the old line from Callander. Triggered in sequence, they would echo around the hills and describe the changing landscape across the Highland Fault using sound. So far it has only been possible to test this along a two-mile stretch, but fundraising is underway to realise the full eighteen mile version. ‘By using sound over such a large distance it does all the things I’ve tried to do with other projects but in a much more clean and succinct way. Despite its scale and ambition and the hardness of the landscape and weather, it survives as something so incredibly delicate. The echoes do something so subtle you can only get it by being there.’ - Steve Messam

iphone video footage of the 'High Force' barn piece of 'Waterfall' 'Waterfall' was a large scale site-specific art installation which saw three traditional whitewashed barns wrapped in slow motion films of the three major waterfalls of the River Tees. Teesdale, County Durham. UK. 16th - 23rd October 2016

Whistle

an installation in Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park

“A Driver should [...] sound the engine whistle when necessary, especially as a warning to persons on the line and frequently when passing through tunnels..”

Handbook for Railway Steam Locomotive Enginemen - British Transport Commission. 1957 p.19

The railway north from Callander towards Crianlarich played a central role in what was to become a National Park.

Built in 1866 the line connected Glasgow and Stirling with the ferry ports at Oban as part of the big Victorian dream of connecting the country. The section between Callander and Killin (Glenoglehead) took the railway through some of the most spectacular and remote areas of the southern highlands. Villages along the route thrived with the advent of increased access to bigger markets and the influx of tourists and new villages built to cope with the demand. When a new branch was built to Killin, the old Killin Station was renamed Glenoglehead and promoted as a destination for hill walkers to explore the wild hills around it.

The line closed in 1964 as part of the Beeching cuts - the last train left Callander Station with 50 detonators echoing up the line behind it as a final farewell.

‘Whistle’ is a proposed installation which will audibly traverse the former railway line, linking it to its past. A series of steam engine whistles at 1km intervals will cascade up the path of the railway beyond Glen Ogle. Each whistle will trigger off the next at 0.5 second intervals such that the ripple will traverse the entire 18 mile length in 9 seconds. Each whistle will echo and resonate with its own immediate landscape - those in wooded areas will sound very different to those in wider, wilder valleys. As such the piece will have very distinct and different presences at every stage along its route. In clear still conditions it may be possible to hear all 21 whistles - the weather playing as much role in its sound as the topography. As a rapid, linear sound installation, the sounds to a visitor, will draw a visual line along the route from south to north through ever wilder landscapes before fading into the vastness of Glen Dochart.

The whistles will be replicas of those on the Stanier ‘Black 5’ engines - the line was run almost exclusively by those engines from the mid 1930’s until the line closure. The whistles on those engines were quite specific and were in turn descended from those designed for the Caledonian Railway company who originally built the line. It’s entirely possible that that whistle sound was the only whistle sound heard on that line. Sound is a very powerful trigger of memory and it is hoped that those who remember the railway in use will have a very powerful personal experience of the piece.

The installation will be made from 42 identical units mounted on a 3m wooden pole to be planted in the ground. Each unit will consist of a steel steam engine whistle powered by a small cylinder of compressed air. Triggering will be by RF (radio control) with each unit receiving the signal to sound the whistle then sending on another signal to the next unit with a 0.5 second delay. The simple control circuit will be powered by a 12v battery and enclosed in a locked, weatherproof box. The initial triggering will either be manually from the first unit, via sms from a mobile phone, or on a built-in timer on the first unit.