Marie Hanlon & Rhona Clarke: LAST ACT

Weather events from most of the visual material: real footage of drought, flooding, wildfires and melting ice gradually builds towards a widescreen shot of dark engulfing waters at the work’s close.

These sequences are bookended by stark images of empty industrial spaces. Doors and shutters open to blank whiteness, referencing our industrial past and present, visually linking industrial production with the climate crisis.

Presented in black and white devoid of humans and animals, a conscious attempt to present familiar imagery in a way that is different from daily news reporting. The pace and rhythm of the work is calibrated towards slowness.

Clarke’s choral music takes its text from the Latin poem Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) which describes the final judgement. Performed by State Choir Latvija, the plainchant evokes centuries of composers who have quoted the Dies Irae motif.

A layer of other sounds expands the aural experience. From the initial arresting drum beat to the measured beats that follow and the final tolling bell there is a constant sense of marking time. A basso profondo; the deepest sound within the male vocal range; was consciously and deliberately chosen for the final sound sequences.

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