The Swamp [Vol 1] Extended Trailer - NEWNESS!

This is a trailer for my first video in a new series. 

The videos explore the infamous Swamp; a secluded piece of wild land in Lewisham and are made from footage I filmed there over the last 20 years.

In this first chapter I look at the mysterious pond and the unnamed stream.

Run time of full film: 24 mins

Strange Shack Appears in Wildcorner - SE12

 I recently went though a shoe box full of old camcorder tapes, which i thought were lost. To my absolute joy I found this grainy footage, which i thought I had taped over a while back [and berated myself many times for doing so.]
It features a mysterious looking shack, which appeared sometime in the early Summer of 2010.
It looks like it is made from a jumble of found materials and stands alone in a large sealed off piece of wasteland [a Wildcorner] on Barring Road, SE12, in the London borough of Lewisham.
What was it for? Who had made it?
 The materials possibly could have all been salvaged from within the corner.
You can see a longish narrow window facing across the wasteland and a small door at the back. A shelter made by a vagrant perhaps? Or maybe some kind of 'viewing hut' for observing the wild nature in the Corner?
 The reason the footage is so special to me is that I suspect this to be the work of the infamous city explorer Solomon Wild. The shack serving as a base to work in, while studying the corners wildlife and graff.
I used to travel past regularly on the 261 bus, who's top deck overlooks the site and I was sure I'd never seen it there before. I filmed it with my old camcorder on three separate passes of the bus.
 The shack stayed there for the rest of the Summer until one day in mid Autumn, I saw from the bus, that the shacks roof and two of its side panels were twisted and broken.
My guess is that it was caused by unusually high winds that swept through the city a few weeks previous. Over the next few months i watched it slowly deteriorate, becoming again part of the wildcorner it was possibly built from.
It looked like whoever lived in or used it, had long gone. This leads me to think the shack was only intended to be a temporary base, to use just for the Summer.
I wish now that I had got inside the corner somehow, to inspect the wreckage.

White Stag of Lewi' Spotted from Train

Where two internal networkz [wild corridors] meet in Lewisham; The train line and the River Ravensbourne.

As the train passes alongside the river, for a few seconds he can be seen, The Weed Spirit, howling at its banks. 

It looks like his call disturbed a flock of three birds; perhaps stowaways from his world, who have somehow passed through dimensions with him, carried by the life-force of his presence. 

Their empty shapes, burnt into the wall.

171 Bus at 8.30 AM, May 2006 [phone footage]

Tracing the Water Cycle [a Live Ritual] - excerpt phone footage

Tracing the Water Cycle (A Live Ritual), is a live experiment in which the audience is invited to private room that will act as a periscope for exploring the outworld.
Jack Thurgar and his sophisticated map recycles a rich imaginary from different sources: re-contextualization of found footage, recordings and new fictions.
The installation will put together an impossible sequence in a form of live collage; from the open scene (sequence from the very first home-video from the artist) this intricate flow of water will travel in time and space, and while Jack Thurgar will be guiding us in the dark room, his alter-ego the explorer Solomon Wild will show us his personal recordings throughout his global wanderings.

- Lucia Rivero, 'Smashing Time Show' 2011

The ritual works as a loop. As the conductor, I channel the water through the analogue equipment, which is placed in a circle on the floor. Using a timer for precision, I turn on or 'open' each piece of equipment, connecting them to create a path for the water to form a magic circuit. As the water threads its way through the machines I orchestrate its twists and turns until it reaches its ultimate conclusion.

- Jack Thurgar, 2011

This to my knowledge, is the only existing footage of the live ritual. The whole piece lasts around 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the footage starts a few minutes in [as the plug in the bath is pulled] and misses the last five magical mins.
If anyone has other footage of this magical event, please do get in contact.
Thanks.

INTERNAL NETWORKZ - Vol:1 The Quaggy

Internal Networkz is the first in a series of video documentaries exploring Lewisham boroughs connecting wild corridors, such as its rivers and train lines. It was made for my MFA final show at UAL and is the conclusion of two years worth of work and research.

 In this first volume, the viewer comes with me on a journey as I explore the path of the river Quaggy. I pick up the route at its end, where it flows into the River Ravensbourne at Lewisham Train Station. I follow it where it passes underground at the police station and on, through suburban parks and the backs of houses through south east London. 

Unknown to us at the time, as I traveled up river, riots came to the streets of Lewisham. I keep to the river and slip through the world above us unnoticed. 

 I explore and study the secret markings left under bridges and look for links and clues of London's underground legends and mythologies. In particular, for traces of 'The Lewisham Natureman', a mysterious character from South East London 'Graff' folklore. He has never been seen and only appears through the tiny symbol [often carved] which can be found in the wild corners and corridors of the capitol, mainly in Lewisham and her surrounding boroughs. The symbol is that of a crown, formed from a circle of figures holding hands [like the crown used in the logo of Lewisham borough] , with a single dandelion growing through it. 

 Some say he is not a man at all but some kind of spirit of nature. A contemporary, urban Green Man or Herne, who walks in these wild places where the weeds grow. 

 Another version of the legend sees the LNM as a wandering homeless man, a herbalist and shaman, who uses these places to rest and grown his herbs and food. The hidden tag is said to belong to him and is meant as a simple and discreet 'I was here' message to his friends and those who know where to look.  

There are many legends of the underground.

Summer Solstice Ritual 2011 / Solomon Wild / Secret Filming

I recorded this footage at Sun rise on the Summer Solstice in a piece of commercial wasteland in SE12. It captures, what I believe to be a secret ritual, performed by the mysterious underground character; 'Solomon Wild.' Solomon Wild Folklore

Very little is know about who Solomon is,.. or even if that is really his name or was given to him. All I really know of him is through folklore and myth. He seems to be some kind of herbalist and cryptographer, an explorer and mapper of London's wild corners and cracks. His purpose for and exact line of research is not altogether clear.
I am pretty sure I have received his Short Wave radio transitions a number of times over the years. It has only ever been a one way monologue and he only uses code to communicate by [mainly Morse but sometimes lesser know, older aquatic codes.] The content is usually reels of strange fractured sentences, single words, locations and times.
Despite his anonymity, he has become a kind of distant collaborator to my work. The Summer Solstice Ritual

It is said that every Solstice and Equinox, Solomon performs various rituals, contacting spirits and making magic to both use and aid the seasons. These are said to be held at secret locations around the city. Anticipating this event as ever, I posted messages on various types of forums and contacted others, in order to glean any information I could about the where abouts and/or the nature of this Summer ritual. All my digging proved unsuccessful.
Then, the day before the Solstice, I routinely checked my various threads and to my excitement, found I had one response. This was on the forum pages of the London graffiti website; rockingthecity.com. It simply said '24 Gb 459'. At first I was hugely disappointed, thinking this was just scrambled net coding. But after pondering over it for a while I realised the last three numbers; 459 was in fact a time; 4:59 am. This was the exact time of sun rise, on the day of the solstice. After cracking this, I then worked out that 24 Gb were in fact coordinates for a map. They correlated with my London wall map inside The Lighthouse and pin pointed an area of roughly 2 square miles. It is in the district of Lee in the borough of Lewisham. This is an area familiar to me and knowing Solomon seems to have some kind of relationship to the cracks of the city including its wild wasteland space, I knew it could only be one of two places.
I visited both patches that evening at dusk, as reconnaissance. After circling the walls of each and peering through the gates, I decided on the second place; a piece of commercial wasteland at the corner of Baring Road, SE12 as the spot I was going to return to for the Solstice.
The land used to accommodate a local diary but has been desolate for fifteen years. It is now owned by the Yellow Box storage company but due to on going lobbying by local residence, the companies applications to develop the land have been repeatedly rejected. Over the last fifteen years the land has been cut back roughly 6-8 times. There is a striking variety of weeds in this large patch and is completely closed of to the surrounding main roads by a high grey wooden fence. On it, hangs a large sign which threatened 24 hours guard and dog security by a company called 'StrongGuard'.
The following morning on the Solstice, I set off before dawn. Equipped with my old video camcorder and camouflaged overalls. I used a street bin to climb on top of the bus stop and then lowered myself down the other side. I plotted down in a corner behind the thick bushes of Buddleia on an old mattress and waited for the first signs of day light, hoping it might bring me a glimpse of Solomon. The perfume of the local wild flowers scented the air and it felt like there was magic afoot.
With dilated pupils and a beating heart, I waited in the twilight.
Here is what I saw. ...

Solomon Wild footage; performing a radio ritual on the Winter Solstice

For information see text underneath the video on the Youtube page.