PARIP 2005

International Conference | 29 June - 03 July 2005

McLaughlin: Cahal | UK

INSIDE STORIES; Memories from the Maze and Long Kesh Prison

a one hour screening for plenary peer review PARIP 2005

Cahal McLaughlin

Media Arts

Royal Holloway University of London

Long Kesh (later renamed the Maze) Prison was a microcosm of the political conflict that raged for over thirty years in the north of Ireland. It was the largest high security prison in Europe and was both the tinderbox and the touchstone of political developments outside its walls. As a result of the Good Friday Agreement fo 1998,  its prisoners were released and the prison finally closed down in 2000.

In April of 2003, I recorded separately the testimonies of three ex-occupants back inside the empty compounds and H-Blocks - a loyalist, a republican and a prison officer. We allowed the materiality of the sites - the wire, the nissan huts, the yard, the cells and the circle to stimulate memories and guide the narratives.

At the PARIP Conference in Bristol, 2003, I presented a paper on work-in-progress, Looking Back Looking Out, during which I screened rushes from the video testimony of a loyalist ex-prisoner of the Long Kesh/Maze Prison. I have since edited a 95 minutes documentary for film festivals and an installation that has three screens running simultaneously for half an hour each.

The three-screen installation allows the participants to remain separate in the same space, a physical relationship they campaigned for while in prison. The issue of segregation was the focus of protests, riots and hunger strikes. Audiences can choose to select whom to listen to and for how long. It is planned that, before PARIP 2005, screenings will have been held in Belfast, where the issue of ‘listening to the other’ will be monitored by cctv.

The feature documentary consists of three half hour stories running consecutively. An early attempt to intercut the material, to create a ‘dialogue’ between the participants, and to replicate mainstream intercutting strategies, became forced with the different tones and rhythms dissonant. The material itself suggested sequential storytelling with jump-cuts. Short visual sequences are offered in the spaces between the storytellers, not as ‘cutaways’, but to speak for themselves, as moments for reflection.

Issues that arise in this proposal for peer review.

• I regard this work as research practice initially because of its collaborative approach. Co-authorship allows the participants to co-direct and co-edit the material. Detailed negotiations, from research through recording to exhibition, ensure that the recording of testimonies represents a participative model that offers the possibility for survivors of political violence to be acknowledged. The most significant creative research question concerns the impact of location on the participants’ memory recollections, narrative structures and performances.
• Reference points for this research include my own experience in community video and broadcast television, with the latter in particular offering an industrial model that works against many of the characteristics of this research’s processes. I also find relevance in the work of the Shoah Audio Visual Archive in Los Angeles and Dori Laub’s Video Project of Holocaust survivors at Yale University.
• The context for these recordings is the peace process that began with the ceasefires of 1994 and was cemented by the Irish and British governments with the Belfast Agreement of 1998. As a result of both these initiatives political prisoners were released and the Long Kesh/Maze prison closed down.
• The audience for this project lies primarily inside the north of Ireland. A small population of 1.7 million people, during 30 years, has witnessed over 3,600 deaths and many more injuries of both a physical and psychological nature. This community is slowly beginning to come to terms with its past and some stories are being told for the first time. Audio visual testimonies are one way to encourage acknowledgement of the ‘other’ through a process of ‘telling and listening’. The material is also of use in further research into testimony recording.
• The knowledge that will be articulated through this practice concerns audio visual representation - the affects of location and materiality on memory recollection, story telling and performance. It also concerns the tensions between individual and collective experiences as well as the contestation over whose history is being remembered.
• Peer review will offer an opportunity for ‘outside’ responses that represent a ‘distancing’ perspective, i.e. from those who have not experienced the Troubles. I will also offer ‘inside’ or practice-based perspectives, from those who work in the representation of stories.
• I will argue that research and creativity are equally embodied in this piece of work and, while they can be separated out, this balance is essential to its meaning. The difference between this piece of work and a professional or industrial equivalent is summed up by, but not limited to, the collaboration between filmmaker and participants.
• The knowledge about audio visual literacy and creativity arising out of the project will be disseminated through a three screen installation of 3 half hour stories at both the conference and at public screenings. The public screenings will be recorded on cctv in order to identify patterns of viewing in identifiable communities, so that I can monitor how the ‘other’ sees and is seen.
• I hope that this model of recording testimonies - with its collaboration, its significance of location on narrative structure and performance, and in its post production and exhibition will be of use in similar research projects that deal with recording testimonies.

Some of the themes that I would wish the conference audience to address include the impact of a three-screen installation on the reception of -

• Narrativity – either all three stories are watched sequentially or choices will be made about moving on and changing the overall narrative. How are such choices made?
• Performance – how location recording affects memory recollection.
• Character identification and challenging expectations – three contrasting participants and their stories vie for attention. Do the recordings bring you closer to a story that you would not have expected to have empathy for? How?
• Where does a ‘trained’ audience identify the practice as research?

Panel session abstract:

‘Writing Panel’

Cahal McLaughlin (Chair)

Media Arts, Royal Holloway University of London

Writing Practice in/with Audio Visual Production

This panel will focus on the writing of practice as an ally of audio visual practice research. Recent contributions in practice-as-research debates, e.g. Westminster University’s ‘Supervising Practice PhDs’, have suggested that  writing is necessary in order to provide the research context. This panel will go beyond this binary and look at the potentialities of writing to be a ‘partner’ of practice.

‘Writing’ here is interpreted as the use of written language, e.g. English. While writing IN practice, e.g. text on a screen, will feature, the main concern will be the nature of practice writing that accompanies audio visual practice. Definitions that will be considered and questioned include writing that is analytical, reflective, theoretical, personal, critical and narrative.

Some of the themes that will be addressed include -

• The differences and comparisons between ‘practice’ writing and ‘theory’ writing.
• The application of theory writing to practice.
• How is practice writing closer in temperament and syntax to prose or poetry than theory writing?
• How is writing that is IN practice different from writing that accompanies practice?
• The distancing of subject in ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ work.
• Is writing necessary in order to give practice its research characteristics?

The panel will include the following speakers –

John Adams (Bristol University)

Lizzie Thynne (Sussex University)

Tony Dowmunt (Goldsmiths University)