Landscapes of brewing, Inspace, Edinburgh, April 2012
(Photograph: Chris Scott)
On Sunday 8th April 2012, I presented an audio-visual installation at Inspace, Edinburgh, as part of the Edinburgh Science Festival, in collaboration with photographer and brewer Jamie Carmichael. The installation represented four different landscapes involved in the production of beer in Alloa, Scotland; a town that used to have a thriving brewing industry, but now only has one remaining small-scale brewery. Jamie, a brewer there, took photographs on a Mamiya C220 Medium Format film camera, while I composed 3-4 minute sound pieces of each landscape using field recordings. The resulting photographs were presented as slides viewable through microscopes, while sound recordings could be heard through adjacently placed headphones.
Below are the photographs and sound recordings presented in the original installation.
Gartfinnan farm
Gartfinnan farm produces barley for beer production; in turn, spent grain is fed to the farm’s animals.
Gartmorn dam
Water is drawn from the dam for beer production. The dam was an important source of water to the early industrial development of Alloa.
CRISP maltings
The sound piece includes all the stages of malting barley (including steeping, germination, and kilning), which is subsequently sent to the brewery.
Brewery and bottling plant
Sounds include the mash tun, fermentation tanks, cleaning equipment, bottling, labeling, and storage of beer at Williams Brothers Brewery.
The installation was presented at the Edinburgh Science Festival, as part of an event called Gastrolab at Inspace:
Thanks to New Media Scotland and the Edinburgh Science Festival.