The dA-Zed guide to surveillance

Screen shot of Dazed Digital feature.

Drones in the sky, whistleblowers in jail: how art is responding to Big Brother's watch is the sub-title for Dazed Digital's A-Z of surveillance in art. Scroll down the article for 'X is for Station X'. The feature also includes Miranda July's 'We Think Alone' and Simon Norfolk's 'Data Centres'. 

The Station X exhibition is still installed in Hut 8 at Bletchley Park, which has a brand new website, take a look! 

Wartime carrier pigeon found in chimney

Pigeon code from BBC News site (link below)

Delighted by today's news that the remains of a carrier pigeon have been found in a Surrey chimney, with the red canister still attached. (Not so good for the unfortunate pigeon of course). According to Colin Hill, who looks after the Pigeon Exhibition at Bletchley Park, the message is unusual because it is in code not longhand. GCHQ are now tasked with decoding it. See the report by the BBC's John Maguire here. A photograph of the bones and the code can be found here (thanks to Bletchley Park Research).

Further pigeon news: War Horse author Michael Morpurgo has revealed that he's writing a story about a wartime pigeon.

And more pigeonry: Dennis da Silva's short film Gustav was premiered on the final day of the Ghost Station exhibition at Bletchley Park (which Station X was part of). The film is based on the story of the  pigeon that delivered the first message of the D Day Landings at Normandy on 6th June 1944. 

An update to the chimney pigeon story from the BBC News site, December 16, 2012. 

100 year old aerial photographs taken by pigeons

An image by Julius Neubronner and one of his pigeons (1908)

Image: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

Julius Neubronner with pigeon and camera (1914)

Image: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
 
An unexpected outcome of working at Bletchley Park is my huge affection and admiration for the wartime pigeons and those who worked with them. Stephen Messenger has written this article for Treehugger about the aerial photographs he obtained using carrier pigeons, with several examples.

Meanwhile we're still waiting for news about when the Station X exhibition will be reopened.

Six days left to see Ghost Station

Rachael Marshall, Documenting Blocks C and D II, Bletchley Park, Ten projected photographs, 2010-2012. 

The Ghost Station exhibition will be closing this Sunday, 30th September. However, Station X, which includes my photographs, will remain in Hut 8. 

Ghost Station features the work of 23 artists, all inspired by different aspects of Bletchley Park and its wartime work. 'Gustav', a film about a wartime pigeon by Dennis Da Silva, will be shown at 2pm on Sunday, as part of the closing party for the ArtHertz show. 

It was great to meet many of the artists on the opening night. Here's a list of them, with links where possible: 

Hannah Elizabeth Allan
Hannah Rae Alton 
Angelo Cerantola
Al Croseri
Dennis Da Silva
Elizabeth Dismorr
Bradley Hayman 
Birgitta Hosea
Lloyd Hughes
Hannah Hull
Esther Johnson 
Adrian Lee 
Gemma Marmalade
Fleur Melbourn 
Catrin Morgan 
Paul Matosic
Ingrid Plum 
Julia Roach 
Colin Turner 
Station X (that's Caroline Devine, Maya Ramsay, Luke Williams and me).

Station X in the Teleprinter Room at Bletchley Park

Rachael Marshall, Creep, Block C, Bletchley Park. Acrylic mounted photograph, 16 x 24 inches. 2011.

Station X is now installed in the Teleprinter Room in Hut 8, Alan Turing's hut. It's currently part of Ghost Station, the ArtHertz exhibition for Milton Keynes Heritage Open Days, but will remain in the room on a loan to the Bletchley Park Trust's collection. 

Thank you to everyone who attended the Private View last night, including Councillor Catriona Morris, Mayor of Milton Keynes. It was great to meet some of the other 20 artists who are showing work inspired by the unique history of Bletchley Park. Also huge thanks to all the staff and volunteers of Bletchley Park, ArtHertz and everyone who assisted us with the tricky installation; securing artworks and AV equipment in a listed building is not easy! Special thanks to Dad, whose first post-retirement project was plinth-making, Pete, for stepping in with various tools, Gary for loan of equipment (and a tutorial in using it) and Mussy for last-minute help with wiring and nerve-calming.

Also, huge thanks once again to our supporters PMC Speakers and the Milton Keynes Community Foundation: installing Station X at Bletchley Park could not have happened without your help.

We've already had some lovely comments from people who saw the show last night - a testament to what a strong team the four of us are. Me getting stuck inside one of the projector plinths was just one of many funny moments from this week. Luckily no-one took a photo of that.

Finally I have a chance to catch up with the rest of the country and watch The Bletchley Circle! 

Ghost Station at Bletchley Park

Ghost Station flyer by ArtHertz

Ghost Station is the new exhibition from ArtHertz, staged at Bletchley Park - the home of code breaking during World War II and the birthplace of modern technology. The month long event is part of the Milton Keynes Heritage Open Days - Summer of Culture 2012 and explores themes of codes, code-breaking and messages, Alan Turing, the role of pigeons and women in World War II. The exhibition also explores the ongoing ArtHertz agenda of the analogue / digital distinction. Ghost Station will also include the critically acclaimed collaborative piece, Station X (featured on BBC Radio 4) - an installation that documents the Bletchley buildings with sound, film, photography and surfaces.

Over 20 selected contemporary artists' work will be interspersed amongst the museum's exhibits in Hut 8, the Bombe Hut and Hut 11. The Enigma Cinema at Bletchley will also play host to screenings of short films curated by Rushes Soho Shorts Film Festival and ArtHertz presenting the UK Premiere of Al Croseri's feature length film,The Pigeoneers, Esther Johnson's 'Analogue Kingdom' and 'Tune In'. There will also be a closing party and premiere of the war pigeon short, 'Gustav' by Dennis Da Silva on 30th September.

Pigeons and an interview with the BBC

Rachael Marshall, Image from Documenting Station X, Blocks C and D I, Ten projected photographs, 2010-2012.

An interview with Caroline, Maya and me has just been published on BBC News Beds, Herts & Bucks.

"They have lifted rust-covered surfaces from walls, recorded the squawking of pigeons and other sounds from inside the decaying buildings, and those that come from outside like the rumble of trains from the nearby West Coast line."

The Pigeon Museum in Hut 8 at Bletchley Park celebrates the wartime contributions of carrier pigeons and displays pigeon boxes, official documents, photographs and a list of the 32 pigeons that received the Dickin Medal. Pigeons were often parachuted to locations in enemy territories with tiny messages in cylinders attached to their legs, and flew back to their lofts carrying a reply. 

World War II Parachute Container. These were used to supply European Resistance Groups with pigeon message carriers. Donated by Mrs Challis. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

The pigeons at Bletchley Park are such a  big part of the Station X project, so I went back to the Hut 8 for another look at the collection yesterday. This was after a quick look inside Block D, where I noticed that the bird that is on top of an old file in one of my photographs, 'Histories', in the exhibition is now on the floor where the sunlight doesn't reach its wings.

Station X flyer

Station X exhibition flyer

Station X exhibition flyer

The dates, times and venue for the Station X exhibition cannot possibly change now that the flyers are ordered, and if anyone spots a typo on this I really don't want to know!

We're very pleased to have the support of both the Milton Keynes Community Foundation and PMC Loudspeakers.

In the northern end of Block C

Maya and Luke in Block C

Working in the buildings is tough at this time of year because of the cold and damp. This photograph of Maya and Luke was taken at the northern end of Block C, where the only light is from the roof and occasional chinks in the timber hoardings on the windows. 

Our visit was brief - we spent just a couple of hours in Block C and then had some meetings about the show. The gallery is just over the road from the John Lewis end of the (recently Grade II listed) Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. An enormous pancake in the cafe was such a treat after spending the morning in conditions like the photograph above. 

For once I was glad to get togged up in an overall because bending down to pick up a coffee before starting work my jeans ripped in a place that you really don't want holes! Luckily I was wearing thermals underneath. Photographing Bletchley Park is not a glamorous occupation.

You might have noticed that I'm only posting one photograph with each blog post now. This is because I'm saving them for the show of course and I hope you can come to experience the sights, sounds and textures of the unused buildings before they're refurbished. 

This week I've updated my biography for the exhibition, which you can find under About, and we've added a Facebook page about the Station X project too. Thank you to everyone who's given it a like so far.

Architectural histories: Block C is listed

Three pigeons on a ledge inside Block C at Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Histories is the title of a module taught by Professor Colin Davies at London Metropolitan University's Architecture School that I took a few years ago. Referring to the history of a place, person or idea now seems wrong to me because any account of an event in the past is more revealing of contemporary values and attitudes than those of the time of the subject.

I mention this for two reasons. Firstly, I watched Enigma over Christmas for the first time since I saw it after its release in 2001. Anyone who knows Bletchley Park would spot immediately that the mansion house is not the real one. According to the IMDB this is because "Bletchley Park did not look enough like Bletchley Park to the production company to have been used in the film". More controversially, the main character Tom Jericho's achievements at Bletchley Park are obviously based on those of Alan Turing but Tom, who has a relationship with Kate Winslet's character in the film is not Alan, who despite an engagement to a co-worker, was homosexual. 

Enigma set out to tell a story and was inspired by historical events but not bound by them. I remember reading somewhere that good fictional dialogue is not achieved by writing in the way that people actually speak; to read a section of text written in this way is likely to be dull. Good dialogue needs flow, drama and pauses, but people in conversation meander, interrupt and hesitate. For a complete understanding of the true history of the codebreakers (or any history) perhaps we would have to invent time-travel and revisit not just the moments of drama and intrigue but experience moment-by-moment the painstaking and repetitive hard slog of the decryption process. That would be fascinating for a short time, but not a way to tell an engaging and powerful story. 

I've mentioned before that I think I was aware of the code-breaking activity at Bletchley Park before Enigma was released but for me the film brought to life the seriousness and importance of the work. I happened to watch the film with an IT enthusiast who explained the inaccuracies as soon as it was over, and I expect that these were widely debated in the media back in 2001. The story in Enigma therefore prompted interest in the Bletchley Park historical activities for many people who may not otherwise have heard of it.

I began writing this with the intention of comparing the idea of histories with story-telling and the UK system of listing and preserving certain buildings because Bletchley Park Block C joined the other remaining buildings in being Grade II listed last week. The story of Bletchley Park's buildings continues, and with it the  histories of the codebreakers, wars and education. That's enough about the listing process for now. The pigeons will have a home until funds are raised for the restoration works. 

Work produced by Caroline Devine, Maya Ramsay and myself will be on show in the Milton Keynes Gallery Project Space in May 2012. Details are here.