A Mild and Equable Climate

A collaboration of sound and image between Martha Cattell and Jonah Hebron. The film plays on the tradition of amateur holidaymaker/archive films of Scarborough, which are often clouded by a sense of positivity and especially nostalgia.

A mild and equable climate subverts this style using slow static footage, of spaces around Scarborough to give a narrative of the town both in stasis and transition, both forward and future looking. It was filmed on three cameras including a phone, to highlight the multiplicity of representations and voices at play and once again reference the amateur films largely made of the town and avoid the more constructed narratives created by the tourist boards.

The shots were chosen to represent the old and new of Scarborough, things that have been lost and things that have changed, there is a repetition of movements present in a lot of shots which further emphasis a town in transition a constancy that fades/grows/retreats, much like the tide and the sea that the town is built around.

 

The sound work draws heavily on the album ‘Inventions for Radio: The Dreams’ by Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange – broadcast on the radio in 1964, it draws together recordings of people describing their dreams with electronic sounds representing the sensations. 

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This project was shown as part of 'Shifting Sands,' Scarborough, Jan 2020.