Lost High Street

Lost High Street

Stereo sound work with single monitor VHS video, 11 mins, 2008 (remixed 2017).

On this pastiche of a 1980s VHS tourist video, soundtracked by Big Black inflected drum-machine and fuzz-pedal bass led post-punk, a tourist films from an open-top tour bus around a foreign city (played by Edinburgh), pointing out the sights on his voiceover, unsure of his own past life, mixing what he thinks are his own memories with misheard fragments of the tour guide’s spiel. The narrative eventually takes a bleak turn when the tourist realises that he may be dead, killed by the foreign country’s security forces because of an act of espionage he has unwittingly committed. This means, he thinks (though he is never sure of any of this), that he is now condemned to repeat his final act, the filming of a tourist video, round and round a blossom filled, sun-drenched city, forever. Thanks to Jenny Richardson, Jackie Kerr, Emma Rushton, Derek Tyman, Sarah Munro and Hank Williams. Commissioned by Collective Gallery.

The work is released on the album Futile Exorcise by Paul Rooney on Owd Scrat Records.

 

William Sheridan (The Last Great Record blog). 22/12/2018 review of the work.

“…[A] tour de force…” Bryan Biggs (Bido Lito magazine). September 2017 article referencing the work.

Dandelion Radio Festive Fifty of 2017 (Lost High Street reached number 1).

Colin Serjent (Nerve magazine). Summer 2009 article referencing the work.

Beth Ridley (Nouse website). 25/11/2008 review of the work.

Neil Cooper (MAP magazine #15). Sept. 2008 review of the work.

James Clegg (Art Review magazine). Sept. 2008 review of the work.

“…Lost High Street consists of the rather wayward observations and autobiographical musings of a loner sitting at the back of an open-top bus as it tours Edinburgh. Rooney empathises and charms us into feeling the subjectivity of his protagonists. Who else but him could achieve such deep pathos with such down-to-earth subjects, methods and materials?” Robert Clark (The Guardian). 14/6/2008 preview of the work.

Martin Vincent (Metro). 9/6/2008 review of the work.