The Wireless Set
The story that formed the starting point of this project is set in a fictional Orkney valley and closely follows the locals’ interactions with the first ever wireless radio to arrive in the community.
This project sees the story as a kind of fable. It neatly represents the experience of being vulnerable to a globalised world and, at the same time, demonstrates a remedy.
The son of a local family returns from overseas carrying the radio as a gift for his mother. It arrives as an attempt to support the island and connect it to the rest of the country, but instead creates complex tensions.
To the family, the ‘disembodied’ voice spouted unreliable weather forecasts and unrelatable news. They were both repulsed and intrigued and found the concept that someone would speak to them without being in dialogue absurd. Also absurd was the notion that someone would describe their lifeworld without inhabiting it.
When WWII breaks out, some residents go to war. Once the community is enmeshed with the country in a new way, they become dependent on the radio. It becomes a vital link in matters of life or death, deeply and emotionally entwining them with a standard narrative that does not recognise their experience.
Read Mackay Brown’s, ‘The Wireless Set’