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SEAFORTS PROJECT

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Stephen_turner posted on Saturday, September 24, 2005 - 6:42 pm

Welcome to the Seaforts Project. Artist Stephen Turner returned from the Shivering Sands Fort, eight miles off the North Kent coast on September 9th after five weeks of solitude in this unique environment.

He will visit these pages everyday to answer any questions about his experience and to add further reflections on his time there. Please visit seaforts.org to view the complete web log and to get news of any up coming events.

(Message edited by Stephen_Turner on September 24, 2005)

Shellfish posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 1:55 pm

Hi Stephen,

Will you be giving a talk on a weekend in whitstable at all? I would love to come to the thursday one but unfortunately I have to work.

Your daily updates were very exciting. The last image of the forts as a reflection in your eye was the perfect ending.

Did you record any video / sound footage during your stay. If so, will you be showing this anywhere.

Anyway, regards and thanks for letting us share in the experience though your site.

Shelley

Elbowgeek posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 2:06 pm

Hi,

First I must say that I followed your exploits on the fort with great interest. What was it like to be living with the remnants of the distant past all around you? I found it almost an emotional experience myself when I read your descriptions of objects you found which dated to the forts' heyday, items which were used by the original occupants.

Many thanks,

Dennis

Mermaid posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 2:14 pm

Did you have to sleep with all your clothes on because it was cold? Did you wake up every morning and wonder where you were? Did you think you were going mad?

Soundman posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 5:57 pm

It did cross my mind that your busyness at the fort - methodically exploring one bit at a time - might have been counterproductive in the sense that it could keep your mind occupied and thus not feel so much different from working in a focused way on a project in a more conventional setting.

I wondered whether you thought that at any stage your daily schedule might have got in the way of exploring your themes of time change, isolation, and creative contemplation? Did you set out to operate this way, or did you just find yourself falling into this timetable, and if so do you think this desire to fill your time might have been a reaction to not wanting to deal with those quietest thoughts that are usually missed as a result of the pace of modern life?

Veinsplasher posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 6:49 pm

What manner of paperwork did you need to wade through in order to be allowed at the fort? How long was it from first application to permission being granted?

How did you choose the section of the fort in which you stayed?

Also, what did you leave behind?

Ollomo posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 6:50 pm

Thank you for acknowledging my email - at least I restrained myself to one, I could have sent dozens, I had so many questions!
From the moment I heard about the project I was intrigued and envious - I watched the web site & the weather forecasts waiting for your arrival and then every day I checked for your diary and web cam shots - if I was working at home I checked the web cam every hour or so.
Are you writing about your 'expedition', are there to be anymore interviews???? I missed all but 2 minutes of an article on R4 & it didn't seem to be repeated or availale via their web site. Please ensure that your sponsors/publicists make it easy to find out if there are to be books etc.
I note that other correspondents are querying the
'why' - was there a reason? Has the experience 'changed' you, in any way? Do you miss the solitude?
I appreciate that you are now back to the hum-drum so please do not feel that you have to reply.
Just so pleased that you did 'IT' and that you shared 'IT' with us.
Many thanks.

Stephen_turner posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 7:51 pm

Dear Shellfish

I may do a weekend talk in Whitstable later in the year when I launch the book, but I am sorry Thursday is the only date arranged so far. There is over 3 hours of video but I have not reviewed it all yet and 2 hours of sound. Some video may go onto the seafort.org web site as well as some sound, if you want to check it out in a week or so. I found a great 'sound hole' and recorded lots of undersea sounds - its very atmospheric and restful. Again I may put some on the web site. I had intended to do this live when I was there, but my sony recorder did not like my mac computer.

Glad you liked the eye - if came about by accident when I tried to photograph my beard!

best wishes

ST

Stephen_turner posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 7:55 pm

Hi Dennis

It was very sobering living with the past - a constant reminder of mortality and the passing of time. When does the past begin? Just now! Then its gone and is never to be had back. It made me live very intensively, and not want to waste a moment of life.

ST

Stephen_turner posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 8:02 pm

Dear Mermaid

I did sometimes sleep with my clothes on. When the Force 8 gale was blowing I also slept with my life jacket on.. just in case!

I never thought I was going mad, but one morning when I was just waking up I was convinced I heard a voice shout "Arthur" - like a mother trying to wake a child.

When I got back home, my young nephew said he had heard on the news that the tower I was on was haunted - but I do not know if arthur or his mum are involved. I wonder if anyone else reading this knows anything about fort ghosts?

Thanks mermaid

ST

Stephen_turner posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 9:55 pm

Dear Soundman

The place was very important and its unusual nature and isolated location gave me a focus that probably kept my mind engaged and prevented my getting unhappy.

Though busy, I was doing everything quite slowly and carefully; reflecting on things seen, found or made. I had a conversation with the fort, that took me back and forward in time. There were a lot of echoes there, and my own presence added more. The whole experiece was changing, isolated, creative and contemplative.

A lot of the timetable was practical. hauling water, trying to wash, cleaning the loo, preparing food, making the bed, sweeping up - everyday activities that became inseparable from exploring the fort or taking photographs. Everything was interdepandant, equally important- and gained special meaning away from the pace of modern life.

ST

Stephen_turner posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 10:14 pm

Hi Veinsplasher

The whole porcess really took eight years from first inspiration to 'being there'. The application began in earnest around two years ago, preparing an application and looking for sources of funding, so that the whole thing could happen safely and properly.

There was also a lot of 'permissions' paperwork - letters to the MOD and Port of London, etc. that went nowhere until I met Robin Adcroft at Project Red Sands - a group committed to restoring the Red Sands Fort. Robin and his team had convinced all the governmental institutions that they were serious about restoring the towers and I effectively went along under their wing for the last twelve months.

I stayed in the former accomodation block because it was accessible and relatively clear of rubbish when I arrived (though there was still a half inch of dust and grime).

I brought away old fragments of newspaper, rags and cigarette packets for example (including 1940's Players Weights and John Player Specials from the 1970's). I left behind a large mound of swept dust.

ST

Stephen_turner posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 10:25 pm

Dear Ollomo

I wanted to go to the edge and see what it was like, to visit the horizon (only to find another of course). It made me feel life more intensively and live for every moment; aware that I would be wrenched away after six weeks. It made me realise that I should not 'put off to tomorrow what could be done today' as ones tomorrows are a finite resource. It made me think we should all live our lives as well and as fully as possible.

ST

(Message edited by stephen_turner on September 26, 2005)

Writer posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 10:28 am

Dear Stephen,

Well done on a successful journey and a very interesting summer.

Can I ask what you discovered about the lives of the men who originally worked on the fort in WWII? Were the conditions poor? Were they cramped? Could you imagine it full of men and underfire? How was it at night, when you were alone and the natural light had gone, in those moments between "lights out" and sleep? How did that feel inside?

I look forward to hearing from you and in the meantime send my congrats again on a very successful project...

Writer.

Uncle_sparks posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 10:55 am

Hi stephen,what was your most inspiring moment or put another way,what took you to another level?
I liked the picture of the moon rising over the other towers.

(Message edited by uncle_sparks on September 27, 2005)

Roger_burgess posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 4:35 pm

I don't see the message I sent yesterday, Monday, though my registation was confirmed.
Your replies to other respondents yesterday and today - especially re. ghosts in the fort - interest me particularly. But please first see my earlier notes left for you when you were in the fort.
Cheers,
Roger Burgess

Roger_burgess posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 4:38 pm

Veinsplasher posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 10:36 pm

The forum page back at the Seafort site doesn't have a link to this discussion, yet. Can that be updated?

Stephb posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 11:33 am

Dear Steven,

Such a lovely project, we were all hooked here. Good to have you back though!!!

Bassman posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:48 pm

HI STEVEN,
Please confirm to a cynical group of people i know that you wern"t paid 50k+ for this brilliant project.

Roger_burgess posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 7:20 pm

Why can't I easily access this page from the apps.kent.gov.uk site?

Roger Burgess

Veinsplasher posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 8:30 pm

What, other than the book, will be your connection to the Seafort and related organizations? Would you do speaking engagements to raise money for the conservation? Perhaps a filmed documentary?

Stephen_turner posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:20 pm

Dear Writer
The forts were relatively spacious and each tower would have housed about 20 men during the latter part of the war. On reflection, I imagine this brought with it stresses equal to being alone - especially if you did not get on with all the other people. It would have been difficult to get any privacy at all, and this, allied to the threat of being bombed or straffed, could not have been pleasant.

I do not think the forts were ever dirctly attacked by the enemy - though one memoir states that the USAF dropped empty gasoline tanks on the forts for fun!

I beleive the men always ate well. The catering corps made their own bread on board and there were regular supply boats. Fishing was also encouraged when the men were off duty as a way to supplement the diet.

At night I always wanted to be in bed by sunset, so as not to risk standing on anyhing sharp, or walking into rusty beams (I managed to crack my head in full daylight once). It was also to do with tuning into the natural cycle.

Stephen_turner posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:27 pm

Dear Uncle_Sparks

I am not sure that one thing took me to another level, though there were many memorable moments. Early on, my discovery of a fragment of the Daily Herald from 1958, stands out. I remembed that I was four years old when it came out and I was taken back in time to a memory of wanting a place were I could be alone - an old wash house at the end of the terrace where we all lived.

I started to wonder whether one is born with the desire to be alone, or if it is a product of life experiences- I am still not sure.

S

Stephen_turner posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:34 pm

Hi VS

The link to from Seafort.org to this forum is now established. Re your later post, the book will connect me to the forts very strongly. I may decide to do a set of photographic prints too for example, but it is a bit early to say as I am still digesting everything I felt and discovered.

I would love to see a filmed documentary about the forts. I am sure that Robin Adcroft, one of the Directors of PRR's thinks on similar lines too. He has the drive to get the BBC or an independant production company to do it. I am assuming you have been to project_redsands.com to see their site?

S

Veinsplasher posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:37 pm

"one memoir states that the USAF dropped empty gasoline tanks on the forts for fun!"

We Yanks are a funny bunch, eh?

Stephen_turner posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:45 pm

Dear Bassman

Many people seem fixated on the price of everything whilst seeing value in nothing (to slightly misquote someone else). I received just enough funding to do this project well, but I'm afraid I never enter into debate about cost.

Best wishes

Stephen

(Message edited by stephen_turner on September 28, 2005)

Stephen_turner posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:49 pm

Hi Roger

Thank you for your messages today. I am sorry you have been having difficulties getting access to the site. Obviously you solved the problem somewhat as there are three posts from you now, but I will of course reply to your earlier email to seaforts.org

All best

Stephen

Errol posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 2:54 pm

Hi Stephen

I went out to photograph the Sea Forts while you where living on them. (Thanks to Bay Blast)

Take a look:
http://www.ersmedia.co.uk/site/

PS. These photos are also for sale to anyone who may be interested.

Thanks and all the best, loved reading your online daily log.
Errol...

Wanderlust posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 11:52 pm

Will your website be a permanent record of your experience and stay online? I think it has been an inspiring glimpse into isolation and how a human being can become so focused on minute details once the everyday over abundance of sensory stimulation is removed. When I go into the remote countryside I actually hear more because of the quietness and would love to hear some audio of the winds and sea haunting these structures.
I wonder what reaction you would have received from the wartime occupants of the forts on hearing about a guy wanting to spend several weeks alone on them! Or even the 60s pirates! ("Man thats cool"!) tee hee.
Glad you did it all though and that we have the web to allow us to share a little bit of it with you (from the comfort of our homes).

Stephen_turner posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 12:32 pm

Hello Wanderlust
I am so pleased you liked the web log. The web site will stay on line and it will be updated. I am looking to try and put video and sound on there. I recorded a lot of the fort sounds, but for want of the right kind of cable while I was there, I could not transfer any data to the computer from my mini disc player.

It may be possible to also include the Radio 4 interviews from Front Row and the BBC television news footage.

Please do check it out from time to time.

All best

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 12:34 pm

Seastar posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 1:16 pm

Hi Stephen,

It was a wonderful project and I am jealous that you managed to get 'on board'. For some reason the Sea Forts seem to have a hold on the imagination like a natural wonder or like a piece of art akin to the Angel Of The North.

I wish �Project Redsands� all the best and hope that at least one of these magnificent, aweinspiring structures is saved.

Thank you for sharing this with us and I look forward to your updates. One day hopefully I can step on board also!

Seastar posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 1:18 pm

Writer posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 1:54 pm

This is a really great project and although Stephen has left the forts the project goes from strenght to strength and we are learning so much from Stephens answers and each others ideas, thoughts and feelings... This has turned into a great piece of community art - with us and Stephen as the community.

You mention, Stephen, the recordings of the noises you heard on the forts..? Can you describe them for us and how they made you feel? And what was making the noise?!!

You are right they do say one of those towers is haunted... due to the bricks of Blitz demoloshed houses lying at the base of them... who knows if thats true - but it doesn't matter because its a good tale.

A documentary is a must... I saw 5 mins on the BBC Breakfast show and I imagine that with the Redsands team, Stephen and Frank Turner and the surviving WWII chaps and the 60's pirates this could be a gripping show for so many people with so many interests represented... and how good as a PR job for the restoration project..!

Writer.

Carol2 posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 9:42 pm

Hi Steven - I very much like your website: your filtering of the dust to reveal the lyrical and the delicate: the poetic images that emerged from your experience at the fort work really well with your words.

But with such an abundance of visual hints and traces, a more raw and emotional written journey about your experience of isolation would have been interesting to read about - and provide more of a contrast to the images (sorry if this sounds like a school report!). That double-side thing of the harshness and the beauty ...

Still, I appreciate the need for privacy, protection of one's self, when posting words into the wind ..

Carol2 posted on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 9:44 pm

PS: I wondered whether you'd read 'Tracks' by Robyn Davidson? Or seen the early b/w still life work of American photographer Olivia Parker?

Gab posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 5:44 pm

Stephen,

I thought some of your comments were a little bit pretentious but your forgiven! You are an artist after all!!
On the whole I really enjoyed your explorations. But, what about the other towers? Did your experience not make you wonder what extraordinary memories might be found there?

Copenhagen_dk posted on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 6:31 pm

Dear Stephen Turner

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful and very inspiring art project! Your artistic methodology is both innovative and inclusive with affinity to so many different layers : the pictures, the text, the role of the artist and the spectator, history, beauty, time and solitude in a busy world overloaded with hectic information. Your way of using interactive modern technology to remind us of things long forgotten and left made me rethink the methods and habits in art education.

I really enjoyed your blog, especially the seascapes :

seafort

best regards from Copenhagen, Denmark

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 6:18 pm

Dear Copenhagen_dk

Thank you so much for your comments about my project. Please do go back to the seafort.org website from time to time as I hope to post sound and video there before Christmas. Do you work in art eductation? It would be interesting to know if you put any of the Seafort ideas or method into practice.

Sincerely

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 6:20 pm

Hi Errol

I really liked your images, they have a great breadth and atmosphere. I wonder if anyone else took photos out there this summer.

all best

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 6:23 pm

Hello Seastar
They really are compelling creations, all are subtly different like brothers and sisters in the same family group.

Ever after exploring one for five weeks it still feels mysterious to me.

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 6:34 pm

Hi Writer

I do hope this forum works as a place for community discussion of the project. I am really interested in the idea of isolation and solitude more widely in society. I would be interested if anyone had views on this wider aspect.

The noises I recorded were the ambient sounds - the background noises to my time on the fort. They include the wind, rain and thunder. The sound of the south mark bell, waves, and other sundry sounds inside the sound box of the fort 'house' - sounds were transmitted through the sea, up the legs and were amplified in the steel box on top.

It is interesting to note that rubble from blitz demolished buildings were placed around the fort legs. The voice I heard calling 'Arthur' was a woman's and all personnel in the fort were male - your information opens up other possibilities!

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 6:45 pm

Hi Carol2

I hope you will like the fuller descriptions / stories / that will appear in the book I am working on. I think it should contain something of what you missed on line.

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 6:50 pm

Dear Gab

Glad I am forgiven! I wished I could have entered the other towers too, but without the walkways between, it was just out of the question. The ladders from the sea are missing from all the other towers and helicopters cannot land on the restricted spaces of the roofs due to new regulations.

The coast guard could have dropped me on board by winch, but they wanted to charge a commercial rate of �18,000 per hour!

Stephen

Uncle_sparks posted on Monday, October 03, 2005 - 3:46 pm

stephen,do you think this will shape your future,not just commercially but personally

Roger_burgess posted on Monday, October 03, 2005 - 5:08 pm

Hello Stephen,
I would love to help with your suggested video about the forts and your time in isolation there. I am a retired BBC TV producer with my own mini-DV camera and sophisticated computer editing.
Unfortunately I live on Tyneside, a long way from the Thames estuary!
Cheers,
Roger Burgess

Melbell posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 3:54 pm

hi Stephen, your project is really interesting. I don't feel isolation is truly felt unless you are in the middle of a sea of people that all seem to know each other and you are the only one that can't relate of feel comfortable. I think if I could live in a place like those sea forts, I'd feel exhilirated! Isolation is deeply felt in the midst of a seemingly alien society.

Stephen_turner posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 6:42 pm

Hi Roger

Thank you for your post. I will reply to your email sent to the seafort.org address about your suggestion.

Sincerely

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 6:48 pm

Dear Uncle_sparks

The Seafort Project will definately shape my future. I saw and felt so much. Some of it, not fully undersood, might might take a couple of years to unravel.

I need not worry about the commercial dimension though, as making millions was never my aim, nor ever a likely outcome!

Stephen

Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 7:37 pm

Hi Melbell

I know exactly what you mean and I have expereinced it myself many times. When I went to Japan, it was truly alienating to be the only European face, and moreover to be unable to understand the language of even the street signs.

Even then however, people, I find, want to help you and there is usually a desire to communicate in some way that can be exhilirating too.

Of course the isolation of a group, a race or a class may also be very real. An assylum seeker might feel isolated today in Kent. The first immigrants from the Commonwealth on arriving on these shores experienced isolation, as did the Jewish people and Hugenots before them.

I suppose when part of a group, you can draw comfort from your compatriots or colleagues, and work together to overcome any issues or less hopefully, retreat into a physical or mental ghetto. Isolation probably needs to be overcome in such circumstances by sharing and celebrating different and distinctive cultural identities.

Individual isolation need not be lonely, though many people I have spoken to would find it so. Maybe you are more like me in finding a solitary experience exhilirating for as long as it feeds ones curiosity?

It would be very different to be held hostage with no release date, nor any knowledge that others might know you are alive. I am thinking of Terry Waite's four years of captivity in Beirut.

I realise that no matter what the provokation, there is no excuse for imprisoning anyone for years without trial - no room for a Belmarsh or a Guantanamo Bay in any democratic society.

I wonder if anyone else has any views on these wider issues around isolation?

Stephen

Copenhagen_dk posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 9:55 am

Dear Stephen Turner

Thank you for your reply!

In a way I have used a Seafort Project look- a-like method in my previous writings, allthough on a pure theoretical basis. My research is very much inspired by the french philosopher and anthropologist Claude L�vi-Strauss who introduced the term "bricolage" in his book "The Savage Mind" (1962). It is a way of describing how a researcher/artist can work with what is present in his or her field of investigation to create new understandings, perspectives or expressions.A "bricoleur" can work with all kinds of stuff and is therefore not limited by traditional ways of thinking.

You asked if I was working in art education? Yes :-), trying to develop new strategies for art education in multicultural urban settings.

As for the question about isolation one might say it�s of decisive importance whether it�s voluntary or forced upon you. Isolation could range from af profound experience of freedom to the worst punishment ever.

sincerely

Lene

Melbell posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 10:26 am

Thank you for your reply. It's really great that you reply to each post individually, and makes interesting reading. I also agree with Lene (Copenhagen) Isolation can range from being alienating to exhilirating and can make survival of an environment very creative, as with your photos. I espescially loved the photos of the imaginary planets and stars, almost like an imaginary universe. Escape can sometimes be found by reverting into your own mind. However if there is an external excuse for your isolation, i.e. in a foreign country, climbing a mountain, living as a hemrit etc etc the isolation becomes very different from the type of isoltion felt when there is no excuse for it, i.e. within your own cultural environment, within your own family home, within the minds perception of reality etc etc i.e. being trapped within your own mind

Dulcinea posted on Friday, October 07, 2005 - 11:05 pm

you must-please-try-somehow to get everything you have from this lovely adventure onto the Seafort site. i'm embedded here in the middle of the US & would love to but don't know if i'll ever get OverThere, & i need to know every bit of what you produced & recorded. lord knows when it'll get here if you wait til the BBC sends it. i'll be dead!

my calm & well-reasoned plea having been made, i stumbled upon your project thru some god-knows-what kind of totally non-related search - your site sitting quietly, waiting to start. i wondered where you would take it, & would it wind up being some weird artsy somethingorother like an ono art show (my apologies to ono fans) or just plain too elite for me.

it�s been very interesting indeed to see what each of us out here in the dark are projecting onto your experience. but, beyond what everyone's said so far, you exposed each facet of your spirit out there, not just your body, to the mingling natural & man-made elements @ Seafort; you allowed it to take you, where it would - even to the common ritual of creating (whether practical or inspired) a type of order of it. it was wonderful to see where each personal impulse took you, & how you responded. as for the adventure w/in each moment, that blessed isolation filled me, with your help. you kept weeping just under my adam�s apple for the Seafort duration.

Jacsaill posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 2:48 pm

dear stephen turner,
i am interested in the images from your calander you made while on the forts. i attended your talk in whitstable library and you showed some images of wire sculptures. i want to reference your work to students in Longfield who are starting a wire sculptural project. i don't seem to be able to find these images on the seafort web page, can you hepl me with this?
thank you.

Stephen_turner posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 3:17 pm

Dear Lene, Melbell and Dulcinea

Having been praised for replying to everyone individually, I am reduced today to this single reply. I am very busy writing up my notes, listening to the fort sounds and editing the film and photos from my stay there. Thank you all for these valuable additions to the discussion. I have not read much Claude Levi Strauss, Lene, but the idea of finding unsuspected harmonies between disparate 'subject matter' has always interested me.

Dulcinae, please don't die yet awhile! Don Quixote will surely reach his princess eventually.

with very best wishes

Stephen

Domain_rider posted on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - 11:20 pm

Stephen,

Thanks for communicating what seems to be a sad, beautiful, romantic, and nostalgic but tough experience in an alien but strangely familiar environment. I've been up on Tankerton Slopes several times recently, looking out at the forts and the wind turbines, but unfortunately I didn't realise you were 'in residence' at the time. Having seen the evocative results of your stay on the forts, I can't help wondering what would happen if an artist from a different artistic discipline was installed on each fort for a period - an painter on one, a poet on another, a writer here, a photographer there, etc. All isolated, but within sight or sound of each other... what kind of a multi-media exhibition might that produce?

Your stay was also somehow reminiscent of what DitchMonkey is doing - a city worker who has abandoned home and possessions to live in the open countryside (not even a tent!) while still working in the city - to raise money for the Woodland Trust. He says he's beginning to prefer sleeping in the open to the comforts of home. You might be interested to read his blog, or chat to him - here's his blog address: http://ditchmonkey.blogspot.com/

Thanks again for your efforts :-)

Domain Rider

(Message edited by domain_rider on October 12, 2005)

Errol posted on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 2:42 pm

Hi Stephen...

Errol again.
Is is true that your currently working on a publication regarding the forts. If you require any photography or images please feel free to contact me.

http://www.ersmedia.co.uk/site

Since my last posting I have had a couple of enquires regarding my photography. Thanks everyone!

Anyone interested, these pics are for sale...

Thanks
Regards
Errol Sidelsky

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 16, 2005 - 7:42 pm

Hi Errol and Domain Rider
I am working on a publication and I will remember your images. That said, it will be mostly of the fort interiors and I took over 2500 of my own pictures! editing them is taking a lot of time.

Thank you for the ditchmonkey info DR. I will go look at the site. I like the idea of artists in different disciplines being on the forts together - each with thier own tower. I am sure that Project Red Sands would love to explore this when they get up and running.

All best Stephen

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, October 16, 2005 - 7:53 pm

Dear Jacsaill

I have just seen your post from October 11th. Apologies for this delayed reply. Thank you for attending the talk in Whitstable. I am pleased my wire sculpture was of interest. No, they were not on the website and I just need to think about how to use these images in the book. The calendar was something I enjoyed doing and kept me in touch with the turning cycle of my time there. If you want a jpeg please email me via info@seafort.org - then I will have your e-address and can send something.

All best Stephen

Wanderlust posted on Sunday, October 30, 2005 - 1:39 am

Thanks for your reply to my earlier posting. I recently visited the RED SANDS and Shivering Sands towers on 2nd October 2005 and with your blog clearly in my mind, adding to my fascination with these structures.
I have been slowly adding photos to my website each year at www.gulbekian.plus.com which is now evolving into an annual photographic record of the Maunsell Sea forts as used by the offshore pirate radio stations in the 1960s.

Maybe you can take a look and tell me which tower you actually stayed on?

See www.gulbekian.plus.com/sitemaplinks.html for a list of ALL the pages with images from 1999 to 2005!

Hope the planned publication and other Seafort related material appear soon. 2006?

Welcome back to lifes little luxuries.....

Roger_burgess posted on Monday, October 31, 2005 - 11:53 am

Hi Stephen,
Just a note to wish you well with your report on the Sea Fort isolation.
Have you any idea of book publication/appearance on website dates?
I am greatly enjoying writing the play I mentioned earlier (I have to submit first 50 pages by 12th November) and whilst anxious not to rip off your work would be happy to read any public domain text of yours before then.
Best wishes,
Roger Burgess

Roger_burgess posted on Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 7:06 pm

Hi Stephen,
All has gone quiet on the forum. I assume you are writing up your adventure. Hope all is well with you.
As I said I had to submit my play (well the first 50 pages and a synopsis) by now and I duly did so.
I won't hear anything before January 2006 and then only if I am the winner. But I very much want to read your conclusions after six weeks on the fort so I hope you'll keep in touch.
If I don't win this particular competition,I am keen to complete my play (it's called simply THE FORT) probably for radio 4, or maybe with view to an amateur production in your area. Do you have any local theatre contacts?
Cheers,
Roger Burgess

Stephen_turner posted on Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 8:00 pm

Hi Roger
Thank you for the posting on November 13th. I am indeed really busy with the project report and extended diary and audio and filmed material for the website update. The book and web site updates will be available in January
All best
Stephen

Roger_burgess posted on Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - 7:33 pm

Hi Stephen,
Thanks for your reply.
Good luck with your report for January!
Cheers,
Roger

Oliver_crowther posted on Thursday, December 01, 2005 - 6:36 pm

Hi Stephen

As outlined in a letter I have forwarded to seafort.org I have been working on a treatment for a film for over a year now. I had sent that letter before visiting this discussion board, so my appologies if I seem patronising (I refer to my comments on the hidden rewards to be found in the sharing of ideas: you are obviously no stranger to that).

I first came across the seaforts very recently, on all-hallows-eve, 2005 as a screen saver on my friends computer. The more I learn about them though, the more certain I become of parallels which run between them, the forts, and something I had been trying to write about for over a year; I just hadn't realised what it was until I came across your project. This something I feel most capable of describing by talking about the forts themselves.

There is doubtless something totemic about the buildings to look at, but this thing seems to be more concretely exemplified by their history, their lives. These forts seem to me to have come to represent something essentially human. Maybe this has grown from small deposits left by their visitors over the years, beginning with Mausnell, or possibly the marrauding invaders which inspired him (no, long before that), and continuing with the army/navy personel, the pirate radio pioneers. And now you.

Has Mausnell not created something beyond ourselves? These forts seem to be natural. Are they not organic: they are organic! They live. Have the forts not transcended their original purpose to begin finally to return to the very materials from which they were hewn? Could it be wrong to arrest their development, their progress, their natural assimilation? Have they not become natural, or at the very least do they not stand for that tenuous bridge that separates us as humans from the natural world. You might as well have been sat in a tree.

Rather, you climbed inside someone's head to listen to their thoughts and tried to make sense of the fragmented memories you found there. A rare treat, indeed! Do the forts not then personify something of the human condition which is otherwise inexpliccable, something which exists in us all? Do the forts not bring to mind our ever growing obsession with outer space and are not our machinations there echoed more humbly, almost imperceptibly so, from within these metal casings suspended above the gateway to the Thames estury? Perhaps the further we go afield physically the more urgently we are transported within ourselves mentally.

I was immediately inspired by the call to preserve these forts as monuments to the past for the future but, on reflection, is it not kind of sad to preserve them?

Perhaps Mausnell created something more eternal, more infinite, and in doing so is it not fitting that that monument should also be mortal. Maybe, to succeed as a monument to the future, the forts need to die now. Your experience is clearly envied, and rightly so. Like the chap sleeping outside, you have shown us one way of severing our ties, if only for six weeks, and have walked up to the edge of that precipise which must surely await us all in one form or another. And perhaps preserving these forts is a further way of reminding us of this. But to preserve them will be to prevent others from doing the same. That is certain.

Maybe, it is the documentation left behind by people like yourself that should stand as the monument for future generations, rather than a restored antique inevitably marooned at a specific point in its long history. But then, I suppose, as a testament to the human condition, we might be hard pressed to put it more succinctly. So many questions....

I spoke of opening a channel of communication between us, whilst admitting you could help me more than I was likely to be able to help you. I was right. You have. And we have yet to speak.

Good luck with the rest of the project

sincerely

oliver

Roger_burgess posted on Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 8:04 pm

Hey, is anything happening?
I last wrote in November 2005.
When in January are we going to see Stephen Turner's sea fort diary?
Best wishes
Roger Burgess

Roger_burgess posted on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 6:44 pm

It is now the middle of March.
When are we going to see Stephen Turner's sea fort diary?
Roger Burgess

Agricola posted on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 6:17 pm

is isolation different to solitude?