In the first two decades of the 20th. Century a railway line was laid between Öskjuhlí? and Reykjavik to facilitate bringing basalt rock to build the harbour. When the harbour was completed the railway was removed. This was the only railway Iceland has ever had and the only way to travel around the island has been, and still is, by airplane, pony, bus or private car.
I decided to use this information to create a work when I was invited to perform at the Reykjavik Art Festival in May 2006.
Using the knowledge gathered during my 16 or 17 visits to Iceland I mapped out a complete railway system covering the whole island then I read and recorded the individual journeys as though they were station announcements. I created the ambience of a large railway station from crowd recordings I made at the carnival of Viareggio (Italy) then I added the sounds of arriving, departing and passing trains which I recorded at the station of Bunde in the Netherlands and mixed these sounds together to produce a ‘railway station experience’.
To this pre-recorded audio work I performed three experimental/performance poems live before the audience in the city museum, which is located on the harbour.
(Photo: Summers)