Passing Beneath the Surface
Online Project

www.slab.uk.net

This work explores the idea of place and identity of the city of Sunderland, working with archive recordings of local residents over the last decade, exposing threads of narrative, which reflect the changing nature of the city and the urban place.

Each episode combines an interviewee with an atmospheric rumbling, dark canvas of sound, creating micro worlds of spoken word. Bits and pieces of people's minutiae are treated as if they were instruments, with each story capturing a piece of local history through the warmth, human frailty and humour of the often-elderly characters.

Days when paper and ribbons were cherished items, days that began early and finished late, days in the railway, down the pit of the coalmine, 'the good old days.'

/sLab, is a new digital media research laboratory at the University of Sunderland based within the School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture involved with the commissioning, curation and production of digital media projects by artists.