Landscapes of infrastructure is a touring installation that aims to facilitate new ways of interacting with archives and site histories. Using collected archival materials, personal photography, sound and conversation, this work questions land use and romantic perceptions of the Scottish Highlands. It highlights the military and industrial structures that have been present in these spaces across time periods, allowing the viewer to question the formation of romantic ideals and how land is used.

The work is designed to travel to locations across Scotland but has been placed in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park at the Glen Finglas visitor centre during the first leg of its travels. This site was chosen specifically because it challenges the false dichotomy between nature and industry in the Scottish landscape. Situated on the Great Trossachs Art and Literature Trail, the site has paths leading to a viewpoint popularised by John Ruskin that helped establish romantic imagery of the Trossachs but is also nearby to the Glen Finglas dam and hydroelectric scheme.


Situated within the landscape, in contrast to traditional archival and discussion spaces, this work allows the viewer to directly connect themes running through the displayed archival materials to the landscape and interpret them within the sites they represent.

The table features an inbuilt acoustic deflector into which live sound of electromagnetic waves is played. This sonic exploration highlights inaudible site-specific soundscapes allowing the listener to question what else is unobserved within cultural constructions of the Highlands.

SOUND ESSAY: 

A collection of archival sound in order played

1946 ‘Bonnie Strathyre’ sung by Robert Wilson originally written by Harold Boulton who first became interested in Scottish folk songs during his undergraduate in Oxford.

1962 A feature from the Tonight show on BBC, Fyfe Robertson interviewing locals in Gruinard Bay.

1973 ‘Fire Leap’ from The Wicker Man.

2021 Recording of electromagnetic waves from Neilston wind farm mixed with field recording of man-made reservoirs.

1980’s I work at Dounreay from Dounreay TV, produced by the UK Atomic Energy Authority to encourage and recruit young people to Dounreay. 

1993 Trucking with Trident from Channel 4 'Free For All' a documentary about Trident nuclear warhead convoys.

1961 Ding Dong Dollar: Anti-Polaris and Scottish Republican Songs documenting the arrival of Polaris when the US Navy captain described them as ‘goddam Eskimos’ giving the song its tile ‘Glasga Eskimos’.

2021 Recording of electromagnetic waves in Arrochar.

1991 Twa recruitin sergeants’ sung by The McCalmans.

To listen to sound/ talk about the work/ or add to archives please email kirstendmillar@gmail.com

SOUND PLAYED THROUGH SPEAKER ON TABLE: 

Within the landscape sits obsolete technology, layers of buried data.

Pastoral sounds of the Scottish landscape recorded in glens, corries and mountains are intersected with recordings of these sites created through telephone pick up mics that capture electromagnetic waves. This juxtaposition of sounds disrupts traditional romantic constructs of these spaces by making the inaudible soundscape audible. 

These sounds were recorded in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, where there is a contemporary electro nervous system of train lines, military complexes, hydro-electric power stations and telephone lines.

These sounds have not been manipulated through the construction of a melody, although there is a natural rhythm of the passage of time, a metronome of weather, clouds passing by the cycle of the sun.