ROCKETMAN

On 10th August 2017 Swedish journalist Kim Wall boarded a homemade submarine in the harbour of Reshaleoen, Copenhagen. The submarine was built by creative engineer Peter Madsen who was, at that time, engaged in a project to launch the first DIY manned rocket into space.
The following morning Madsen was rescued at sea following the sinking of the submarine. Two weeks later the torso of Kim Wall was found washed up on the beach. Her arms, legs and head were later recovered.

Rocketman is a full-length, site specific album created in response to the month I spent living at Illutron, an arts and technology institute located on an 800ft rusted metal boat in the harbour of Refshaleoen, Copenhagen.

The boat itself was dank and rusted, home to huge piles of wires, power tools and abandoned, quasi-militaristic techno-visions: robotic puppets, fire cannons, rockets - their electronic innards spilling out across the floor. I was staying alone for the majority of the month I was there, although members of the institute could and did come to use the workshops whenever they wanted and members of the public were invited to walk around the outer decks and the roof. The boat was cavernous, decaying and home to such a cacophony of unfamiliar noises that I was never quite sure if there were people on board or not. And there were storms. I was seasick. The roof leaked. The power failed. In an incident unrelated to the boat but nonetheless informative of my experience I was pursued and sexually threatened by the same man on a couple of different occasions. I felt alone and vulnerable.

I had anticipated a vibrant community of creatives but the community that was there seemed to be almost exclusively made up of men working in isolation doing the sorts of things that men are usually attributed with doing in sheds. Research into the boat itself revealed its history as a dredging boat; a men’s workplace. I felt this legacy keenly.

The album is comprised of field recordings made on site, found musics and songwriting. It weaves together threads of my own experience at Illutron, the imaginal world of men's workplaces, the boat's history, and, retrospectively, the murder as the mythic psychodrama that belies the entire narrative. My approach privileges decomposition; a falling apart of the (female) self and the site in the wake of a masculinist, utopian techno-vision.

The album will be released in 2020.