Passages of Inscription

‘Passages of Inscription’ arises from the making of my film ‘UNFOUND’, commissioned to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme which took place during the First World War in 1916. Two questions concerned me in the making of the film: how could my approach to such a historically burdened subject avoid the closures of institutional historical memory and how could I deal then with the difficulty of any adequate representation. My answer was to frame the landscape of the Somme in the present through a series of durational image and sound episodes which eschew narrative development and denoument, instead focusing upon incidental details of daily life, seasonal change and industrial presences which encroach upon the Somme cemeteries. Stitched into these episodes are still images of text inscriptions on individual grave headstones, which themselves require constant re-engraving against the erosion of time. This structure is intended to give the viewer ‘breathing space’ to reflect upon the continuous production of multiple histories infused with subjective experience.

This essay assembles a selection of personal writings and commentary on mediatisation of the war, written during the making of the work. The writing moves between sites connected to WW1 in southern England and the landscape of the Somme. Through an intertwining of printed text, carved inscription and photographic images, the style of the essay proposes that processes of memorialisation are produced through media which are themselves intrinsically subject to interruption, lacunae and illegibility. The essay concludes by suggesting that it is the material process of re-inscription itself which expands contextual reference and significance.

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