18/10/2015
Maria Fusco
Artangel, London
Master Rock. A new audio work recorded live inside Cruachan Power Station. Will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4
Master Rock is a new audio work, conceived and written by Maria Fusco and recorded live inside Cruachan Power Station, sited deep inside one of the highest peaks on the West coast of Scotland. Composed of three voices and the sound of the mountain played live by French composer Olivier Pasquet, Master Rock tells the story of the power station's construction and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 17 and 19 October and then available to listen online. Created through brutal blasting procedures and pioneering technologies, Cruachan Power Station was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 15 October 1965. Power created by the reversible pumped storage hydro scheme continues to flow into the National Grid today. Since winning a commission from Artangel and BBC Radio 4, Fusco has immersed herself in the history of this extraordinary site, researching the power station's own archive, talking with the people involved in its creation 50 years ago and making field writings onsite. Played by actor Lalor Roddy, one of the voices in Master Rock, is a tunnel tiger -the Irish explosive experts who hollowed out the mountain so that the power station could be built one mile beneath the newly dammed Cruachan reservoir above Loch Awe. Another is the ancient obdurate granite itself: the 450 million year old hard rock of Ben Cruachan, read by Ceylan Hay. The third voice is the unknown artist Elizabeth Falconer, played by poet Denise Riley. Falconer made the huge mural inside the turbine hall of the power station, a public artwork hidden inside a mountain. Performed live within the cavernous interior of the mountain, Fusco has created a powerful physical narrative that fuses geology, mythology and technology.