Graeme Miller & Mary Lemley: Listening Ground / Lost Acres
September - October 1994
Salisbury, Wiltshire
Co-commissioned by Artangel and the Salisbury Festival, artists Graeme Miller and Mary Lemley re-located to Wiltshire to forge their own footpaths through the landscape. Miller - best known for his pioneering mixed media work in the theatre - created an audio-visual walk that charted a straight line through the map linking points between Stonehenge, Clearbury Ring, Old Sarum and Salisbury Cathedral.
Wearing lightweight headsets, walkers were led through the countryside, guided by remote transmitters broadcasting a multi-layered soundtrack of music, spoken text and overheard conversations mixed with recordings. The complete walk took approximately seven hours but the occasional walker could experiment on shorter sections of the walk.
Mary Lemley produced an artist's book and - in collaboration with glassmaker Jonathan Anderson - a series of tall triangulation points to signify a network of further walks which cross and re-cross Miller's line. Geological and Ordinance Survey maps, historical texts, local journals, myths and interviews completed the artists' response to this very particular cross-section of Wiltshire.
Listening Ground / Lost Acres was co-commissioned by Artangel and the Salisbury Festival and produced by Arts Admin.
