The first stage of the GhosTrain project will create a series of short Radio Broadcasts and a Podcast website focused upon the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works.  The project will address the oral histories and acoustic ecologies of Industrial culture.  The second stage develop this content into to a major sound-installation for TPS at The Carriage-works.

The work aims to create a series of ‘audio-portraits’ of the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works that encompass ,the oral histories and acoustic ecologies of Industrial culture.  Audio content will be drawn from an Oral History project to be established with former Rail-yard workers, archival sources, actuality recordings of Rail technology and environments as well as from a series of contemporary rail journeys.

GhosTrain ~ a rationale:
When we consider changing socio-economic landscapes we naturally focus our attention upon the more obvious physical features of the shifting usage of architectural structures and major environmental infrastructures.

In a marked contrast, the transient elements, that are the soul of living cultures, are difficult to seize upon and tend to be quickly forgotten; erased under changing patterns of work and social usage.  The iconic sounds that characterise a locale are one of the most fragile and difficult of these transient elements to recognise, evaluate and value.

The acoustic ecologies of industrial landscapes are prime examples of our extraordinary capacity for amnesia.  Closely observed every location has a characteristic ‘soundscape’ in effect a sonic ‘fingerprint’, formed from a complex mix of smaller incidental sounds’ punctuated by unique, ‘keynote’ sounds that are site-specific and directly associated with the particular structures and activities found at the location. Good examples of the iconic nature of “Keynote” sounds are the Imman’s call to prayer in Istanbul or the Fog-horns of San Francisco.

The discipline of Acoustic Ecology recognises that contemporary trends driven by Globalisation, the ubiquitous spread of urbanism, mechanised transport and forms of labour result in a homogenisation of world ‘soundscapes’, reducing both the variety, character and uniqueness of local acoustic ecologies.

This proposal seeks to redress such oversight by addressing the unique Architectural heritage and social history of the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works sites from a sonic perspective ~ recognising the importance of the soundscape that once characterised the site and endeavouring to re-instate specific elements of its acoustic ecology and oral history.

GhosTrain ~ Descriptor:
The Eveleigh site is impressive on a number of levels; its robust industrial architecture, the simple but effective re-purposing of the site as a cultural space; set against the lingering knowledge that this was a site of labour ~ of specialised knowledge and skill and of a lifestyle all but forgotten in Sydney’s upwardly mobile affluent society (well that’s a nice way of putting it!).

• The GhosTrain project will be developed in two phases with three principal outcomes, Radio Broadcasts, a Web presence and an Architectonic sound installation.

The first part of the ABC work will comprise of a period of research, with the purpose of generating an extensive sound-library.  This library will consist of material drawn from; local archival sources, the establishment of an oral history project with former workers and labour organisations at the Rail Yards, archival and direct recordings of Railway technologies (e.g. field recordings of trains and train operations). Additional content will be recorded on a series of contemporary railway journeys in Australia and the Asia Pacific area.

GhosTrain will develop an extensive Social Network primarily through the content generation phase of Archival Research and especially the Oral History project.  I envisage maintaining and developing local groups and encourage them to become involved with the subsequent web and installation aspects of the project.

Audioworks for Radio Broadcast:
The second part of the ABC project will be the composition and realisation of a series of short Radio broadcasts that deliver Audio-Portraits of the Redfern Locomotive & Eveliegh Carriage Works, its working histories and the technologies and experiences of Rail travel.  These short compositions will be designed to function as a series of broadcast ‘shorts’ and to be suitable as stand-alone PodCasts for a specially created GhosTrain website (also available to the ABC website).

This proposal seeks to developing this matrix of linkages into a web based platform that will further extend the potential for both research and growing social networks ~ in effect exposing a sector of the working public (ex Rail yard workers) to a creative, cultural process that would otherwise remain distant.

Soundsculpture Installation:
The ABC project will furnish material for a subsequent development proposed to The Performance Space and The Carriage Works as an interactive sound-sculpture installation, distributed throughout the Carriage Works allowing visitors to take a mobile unit and activate ‘sonic memories’.  This will be augmented by single daily keynote sound event (say at noon) in which a leitmotiv sound will pass momentarily along the axis of the foyer space ~ for example; a recording of a steam locomotive moving past a platform, a sort of sonic haunting lasting some 60 second only ~ a ghostly time marker!

The physical installation will comprise of up to 24 small Rail structures (sculptures) installed throughout the Carriage Works.  These ‘stations’ will be modelled upon fragments of viaducts, bridges, rail-heads etc ~ the salient point being that they will all include a short section of ‘track’.  I imagine each of these structures to be no more than 1.5m high, 1.5 wide and about 0.5m deep, they will be attached to walls or columns and made of Steel, Wood and Aluminium.

This ensemble of ‘stations’ will be fed by a live audio stream (from a x24 track hard-drive and x24 channels of amplification).  However, instead of running to speakers, the signal will terminate (silently) on the sections of track.

Visitors will be invited to take a small and slightly abstracted locomotive (these will be some 400mm in length rather like a ‘Lionel’ model train).  When placed upon any section of track the audio narrative will emanate from the speaker encased in the Locomotive’s body, thus visitors will actually ‘perform’ a journey to audit the work.

If no Locos were in-situ, then no sound will be heard in the building, alternatively if several were placed here and there, then an atmosphere of narratives and rail related soundscapes will inhabit the space.