Dark Places

See Also – www.dark-places.org.uk (archived resource)

Office of Experiments both co-curated and participated in Dark Places. The project, the first iteration of the overt research project (see Menu) focused on the South West of the UK, with the outputs of our research, and commissioned artists exhibited at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. The project also included an Office of Experiments online field guide and the first critical excursions or bus tours that were subsequently widely acclaimed. See Overt Research 

The project followed an extensive piece of research into scientific sites and locations that are either inaccessible, remote or not widely known to the public. What started as a simple question ‘Whereis Science’ developed as we began to explore the links that the techno-scientific and military industrial complex shared. Further exploration of the UK laboratory landscape revealed infrastructures, open sites and secretive locations that could be of interest.

As a result, the Office of Experiments visual mapping of these sites in the South West of the UK, our primary focus, was presented in the form of a kiosk which gave visitors access to a database of images and sites. Office of Experiments also exhibited the Mike Kenner archive. Mike Kenner – aka Icewhale – is an independent researcher and activist who over 30 years had amassed an extraordinary archive of former classified documents, films, photographs and maps belonging to the Porton Down biowarfare research facility in Salisbury. A number of these involved experiments on the public. Office of Experiments undertook to archive this material, assign it as a resource for future use. It has since been accessed by a range of researchers and artists since – for more see Resources.

Exhibited Works

Office of Experiments: Dark Places. A Field guide to the South West, UK. Database and Kiosk with projections.

Office of Experiments: The Mike Kenner Archive. Archive including media, photographs and formerly classified documents. Installation with classified video, altered prints, original maps, and display sculpture.

Victoria Halford and Steve Beard; Voodoo Science Park. Original film made at the Health and Safety Laboratory in the Peak District of England.

Beatriz da Costa –  A Memorial for the Still Living. A Display with countdown clocks with specimens loaned by the Natural History Museum , amongst others.  Memorial for the Still Living confronts visitors with the realities of species endangerment in the UK. On view were a number of regional taxidermed specimens currently being under threat of extinction. The specimens were temporary donations from the Natural History Museum in London and the Horniman Museum and represent the only form of encounter we will be able have with those species once they have been eradicated from our planet.

Steve Rowell – Ultimate High Ground was the start of a project about America abroad. Whilst the focus is on the terrestrial manifestation of a global network of remote bases, orbiting satellites, and undisclosed or speculated places on foreign soil, the installation featured in Dark Places focused on videos and audio recorded within and outside RAF site at Menwith Hill.  Accoring to wikipedia, it ‘acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office on behalf of the NSA, with antennas contained in numerous distinctive white radomes, locally referred to as “the golf balls”, and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system’.