HAVING THE LAST WORD | ROLLING STOCK | JUNEE, NSW  | 20th NOVEMBER 2010

Wagga Amateur Radio club member John Eyles loading up a morse code message.

Rolling Stock was a series of site specific performances, installations and collaborations between artists, visiting audiences and the local Junee community on a train moving through unconventional spaces. Curated by Sarah Last of the Wired Lab, Public Assembly was invited to create a site specific and participatory sound installation as part of the Rolling Stock program.

Having the last word project began with an investigation into the way colonial technologies of rail and subsequently telegraph had cut across existing indigenous song lines in the landscape. During this investigation, I soon discovered how important these three lines of communication have been to enable a sense of community in the vast expanse of Australia.

Morse was the first form of radio communication and amateur radio is still the last defense in the time of emergency – like amateur radio operator Bob Hooper establishing communications back to Darwin after Cyclone Tracy when all else had failed. The use of morse code as a communication platform now sits on the edge of living memory – the skill of being a morse operator almost a dying art. Analogue radio communications is now faced with a similar fate – as it is fazed out with the introduction of digital radio.

Having the Last Word was also inspired by my fathers tales of being a ’sparks’ radio operator, VK2ZJ – his life spanning the trajectory of radio communications – from morse to digital. As the Rolling Stock amateur radio project developed, a correspondence developed between us discussing trains, telegraphy and his experience in radio.  During this time a medical condition brought a great sense of urgency to our discussions in a way that lead me to consider the emotional gravity that last words have and what they might be to such a significant figure in my life.

For the Rolling Stock event, this idea was expanded upon and developed into a project  that could provide the experience of sharing the intimacy of your last words – inscribed by visiting audiences and encoded into the fading language of emergency by local Wagga amateur radio club morse operators.  Using one of eight sampling megaphones, we invited participants to load-up their message in the abstract form of morse code and join the emergent rhythm of the remaining booths of our 1936 FS train carriage.

Project collaborators: John Eyles, Mike McDonnell, Joergen (Yurn) Olesen-Jensen, Alan Wheaton and John Gerhard from the Wagga Amateur Radio club.

For more detailed photographs go to the Public Assembly flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/publicassembly/sets