Photo: Celestial Radio will be broadcast for 25 days from just off the Essex coast. Courtesy Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich.
Radio Caroline, the famous offshore pirate radio station that fanned the flames of the youth culture explosion in the 1960s, is to be reborn as an art installation this summer.
Celestial Radio, created by artists Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich as part of a commission for Essex County Council, has been devised as the 'lost' final broadcast from Radio Caroline when it was a ship borne 'pirate radio station' moored off the Essex coast.
Speaking to the 24 Hour Museum, Neil Bromwich explained how Radio Caroline’s legacy kept cropping up during their research about the area.
"It was one of those things that came up that Radio Caroline had been broadcast off the coast here," he said.
The two artists, who’ve been working together for around seven years, explore the space between real landscape and imagined location, transforming perception of place by creating a magical environment.
With the coastline of the River Blackwell estuary as their backdrop, the duo will be inviting people to walk the route between the ancient St Peter’s on the Wall Chapel and the decommissioned Bradwell Nuclear Power Station.
Photo: launched in 1964, Radio Caroline helped spawn the youth culture that gripped the UK in the 1960s. © www.uncletony.co.uk.
Using their own radios and headphones available at the chapel, walkers will be able to listen to a broadcast coming from the Celeste - a boat decorated entirely with mirrored tiles.
Music by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Lynrd Skynrd will share the airwaves with interviews with scientists, religious groups and local people. The chat will be reflective and philosophical, asking questions about the universe, God and ourselves.
The programme is designed to be the final and, until now, lost broadcast of the sunken Radio Caroline.
Founded by entrepreneur Ronan O’Rahilly in 1964, Radio Caroline was set up out of frustration at the lack of airplay given to pop music.
Unable to set up an alternative station on dry land, O’Rahilly took to international waters, began playing what he liked and in so doing caught the imagination of thousands of listeners.
Although it still broadcasts from its website and on digital television, the station left its home on the waves a long time ago after one radio ship sank and its replacement ran aground.
Photo: the mirrored boat will be moored just a short distance out from the coastline of the River Blackwell estuary. Courtesy Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich.
It’s the mythical quality of the sunken wreck of Radio Caroline that Walker and Bromwich have taken as inspiration as well as the non-materialistic ethos of 60s culture.
"It encapsulated something that was lost at sea, particularly that golden era of the 60s when it was the last surviving pirate radio ship left in the waters," said Neil.
"It was the hardcore DJs that were really into the music out there on this lonely platform that just kept going until this thing sank." This, he added, evoked "this feeling of people seeking more in life beyond the material."
"The music of that era seemed to link in with the feelings that you have when walking along a coastline: that you’re quite small and on the edge of something big."
The work will be on show from July 31 until August 22 and is the latest in a series of commissions managed by Essex County Council in partnership with Commissions East, firstsite Gallery in Colchester and Future Physical/ Shinkansen.
Photo: the finished work will be entitled How the universe sang itself into being. Courtesy Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich.
The series, called Coast, has been running since 2003 and Lindsey Strange, Arts Project Manager at the county council told the 24 Hour Museum how it aimed to attract attention to Essex’s 300 miles of coastline.
"The whole Coast project was set up," she said " to use the arts as a vehicle to promote the fact that there’s some really beautiful coastline alongside Essex."
Among works commissioned by the project is Coast Digital, unveiled in 2003, in which Japanese artist Masaki Fujihata made a new digital work inspired by Mersea Island.
Other commissions in progress include Coast Schools, in which artists are working with students to create artworks integrated into new architecture at Clacton-on-Sea.
An exhibition of the Coast Commissions is set to be staged at Colchester’s firstsite Gallery from July 31 until September 4 this year.
As far as the latest commission goes, Lindsey Strange is very much looking forward to its launch.
"We’ve got a 40 foot boat, which Neil and Zoe have completely mirror-balled," she said. "It’s absolutely stunning!"
'Radio Caroline' continues today as a satellite and web based radio station, see http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html for more information.
