Frontier Soldier

FRONTIER SOLDIERSHIPSIDES & BEGGS PROJECTSHD video7.21min2015A video / audio artwork stemming from the STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS umbrella of research. Here a new song Frontier Soldier is recorded live along with experimental audio and video and footage developed of a temporary intervention of the STILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS phrase. This text work was constructed from tree twigs and suspended around the town and surrounding landscape of Chateau Gontier as part of the Gothic Cinema programme. STILL NOT OUT THE WOODS makes oblique references to many things but in this location it very much connected to the landscapes and geo-political dynamics and legacy of WW1. FRONTIER SOLDIER is a song written in a folk/pop/rock genre based on the imaginary thoughts of a soldier fighting in the Dolomite mountains in WW1 - where strategic summits of mountains were exploded via mine tunnels (as also referenced in the Shipsides and Beggs YUPA STAR video artwork where a mine tunnel is climbed and forms the basis of that video artwork) drilled from the valleys, killing whole platoons of men and levelling the mountain summit to a plateau. It was industrial warfare on an epic and terrible scale. It brings a new perspective to the 'sublime terror' of the mountain landscape - and is quite affecting to anyone today climbing in that regions. The song brings together the geo-historic relevance of those mountains, with counter-culture of the 1970's and contemporary lived experience.