Live stream
15:00 – 16:00 BST on 16 June 2020
With RCA / Gasworks
Live audio streams from the source and outfall of the River Effra, transmitted from a manhole cover on Hermitage Road, London SE19 and the Albert Embankment in SE1.
The two temporary audio streams were presented on the real-time soundmap hosted by Locus Sonus and mixed in Chania, Crete by Maria Papadomanolaki.
This allowed the Effra from source to outfall and its sounds to be the subject of/in a conversation by IRC Chat between Jane Trowell (Platform London), Rachel Dowse (Lost Effra Project) and an online audience.
Transcript from the chat
--- Log opened Tue Jun 16 00:42:16 2020
00:42 -!- Irssi: Log file log.txt opened
00:42 -!- Your host is irc.local, running version InspIRCd-2.0
00:42 -!- Channel #effra_streams created Mon Jun 15 19:15:45 2020
00:42 -!- Irssi: Join to #effra_streams was synced in 3 secs
15:27 -!- web56 is now known as Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams
15:52 -!- web9 is now known as Jane
15:52 -!- web28 is now known as Rachel
15:53 -!- web60 is now known as grant_s_c
15:59 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Hello everyone!
15:59 #effra_streams: < web97> Hi!
15:59 -!- web37 is now known as Benjamin
15:59 #effra_streams: < web35> Hello!
15:59 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Hello All
15:59 #effra_streams: < Rachel> If you'd like to change your name, click on the little person symbol
15:59 #effra_streams: < web52> Hi Rachel
16:00 -!- web35 is now known as Lotter
16:00 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Hello
16:00 -!- web52 is now known as Louise
16:00 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Rachel
16:00 #effra_streams: < Jane> hi!
16:00 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> we have now started
16:00 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Hi Jane
16:00 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Hello Ben
16:00 #effra_streams: < Jane> whoah!
16:00 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> We have started streaming
16:01 #effra_streams: < Rachel> It's not coming through for me yet but I'll keep trying
16:01 #effra_streams: < Jane> Rachel it's great to be in this stream with you. Thanks to Soundtent for inviting us.
16:01 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> you can listen to the live stream by clicking on the play button above
16:01 #effra_streams: < Jane> I'm in the torrent... at the mouth?
16:01 -!- web17 is now known as Dawn
16:01 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> at the source
16:01 #effra_streams: < web80> Love!
16:01 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Yes, thank you to Sountent for setting this up, and for everyone for tuning in!
16:02 #effra_streams: < Dawn> Hello
16:02 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> hi Dawn
16:02 #effra_streams: < Jane> is this at the mouth?
16:02 #effra_streams: < Dawn> think so
16:02 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> This is River Effra source transmitted live from a manhole cover on Hermitage Road, London SE19
16:02 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> This is at the source, or perhaps the source, in Norwood
16:02 #effra_streams: < Dawn> Maria is mix master
16:02 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I'm quickly going to refresh my page to try and get the sound, so I'll disappear and reappear
16:03 #effra_streams: < Jane> The source! Who knew it had such a flow after so muc drought.
16:03 -!- web45 is now known as Rachel
16:03 #effra_streams: < Jane> much drought.
16:03 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Ok I can hear it now!
16:03 #effra_streams: < Louise> The secret river Effra is in full flow
16:03 #effra_streams: < Jane> High on Norwood hill.
16:03 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> ok great
16:03 #effra_streams: < Rachel> This is from the manhole cover in Norwood, identified by Tom Bolton in his book of walks along hidden rivers
16:03 #effra_streams: < Jane> So in principle this is fresh stream water.
16:03 #effra_streams: < Jane> No run-off yet.
16:04 #effra_streams: < Jane> We could drink it.
16:04 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> It's strange to hear it on the top of a hill
16:04 #effra_streams: < Rachel> It will be a mix I think, it's not quite at the source and it's surrounded by houses
16:04 #effra_streams: < Jane> Springs.
16:04 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> this is a system of "sewer tubes" connected to each other
16:04 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> this is a single stream at the source
16:04 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> we will be mixing later on
16:04 #effra_streams: < Jane> The river Fleet rises on Hampstead Heath and has many springs, so many that they fill the hampstead and highgate ponds.
16:05 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Audience can join in the conversation.
16:05 #effra_streams: < Jane> So the Effra also rising up, a companion to the Fleet.
16:05 #effra_streams: < Rachel> We think one spring source of the Effra was in Westow Park, there's a spot in the park that's always boggy that lines up with the maps
16:05 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> Here too it seems the water must be whelling up or welling
16:05 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> and archive of this chat will be available here on on the soundcamp microsite @so remember the liquid ground
16:06 #effra_streams: < Jane> Imagine this body of fresh water flowing fast in an open river.
16:06 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> because the ground is lower to all sides
16:06 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Interesting to be with the Effra so clearly, you always stumble upon fragments, references, slight noises coming from the ground. But has it rarely been so present
16:06 -!- web12 is now known as Louise
16:06 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> .. in the conversation
16:07 #effra_streams: < Rachel> When I was working along the Effra I did always feel vaguely aware of it as a presence in the landscape
16:07 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I was living in Brixton and there was a stink pipe at the end of my road
16:07 #effra_streams: < Louise> Poison me, Bury me, Forget me - Jane, this was on the City of Life poster, along the Effra's Course, 1989
16:07 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> the water is amalgamated with the sounds of nearby actions, vibrations and reverberations, transmitted from other tubes in the system.
16:07 -!- web69 is now known as Benjamin
16:07 #effra_streams: < Jane> Is sewage already pouring in to the river here? I don't think so as the actual Effra watercourse is only used under storm conditions for sewage.
16:08 #effra_streams: < Jane> The network around the river was built for sewage.
16:08 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> @jane
16:08 -!- web88 is now known as M
16:08 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> so this is freshwater?
16:08 #effra_streams: < web70> Does it stink?
16:08 #effra_streams: < Jane> Yes Louise, poison me, bury me, forget me
16:09 #effra_streams: < Louise> it is so pertinent now - in terms of how we have turned to nature for comfort during the pandemic
16:09 #effra_streams: < Jane> With a journalist from Resonance rm, I went down into the Effra sewage network at Kennington. It did't stink.
16:09 -!- web54 is now known as Jindra
16:09 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I think the outflow into the Thames is only used during storms, but as far as I was aware it was fully integrated into the sewer system, interesting to know it's in its own tunnel!
16:10 #effra_streams: < Jane> Hmm! Perhaps I need to fact-check.
16:10 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I walked along the Ravensbourne from Lewisham to Depford where it meets the Thames this morning and it really got me thinking about what the Effra could have been/could become.
16:10 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> the cover is open here.. it smells a little of grey water
16:11 -!- web70 is now known as otter
16:11 #effra_streams: < Jane> The original Victorian Bazalgette plan was that the fresh spring water would push the sewage and run-off along, from west to east..
16:11 #effra_streams: < Jane> Nice use of fresh water everyone!
16:11 #effra_streams: < Jane> Victorian techno-fix
16:11 #effra_streams: < Jane> Effra is celtic in origin = it means torrent.
16:12 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Another theory is that it came from a South London contraction of Heathrow, as there was a Heathrow Farm near where it meets the Thames
16:12 #effra_streams: < Jane> yes, Rachel, think ravensbourne, Wandle, Brent, Lea... and open up in our imaginations...
16:12 #effra_streams: < Louise> It's great to hear the silenced voices of these rivers
16:13 #effra_streams: < Jane> Peck, Neckinger, Effra, Falcon, Tyburn, Fleet, Walbrook, Black Ditch... and all their tributaries
16:13 #effra_streams: < otter> I am gradually feeling the effra becomes part of me
16:13 #effra_streams: < Jane> London City of Rivers.
16:13 #effra_streams: < web7355> wow am I listening river sound in London?
16:13 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Yes exactly, I remember a story, vague on the details but there was storms either in the 80's or 90's which caused the Effra to flood and seep out, it was if it was trying to escape. And in relation to the suppressed history dating back from when it was suppressed for irrigation and then for the expansion of the city as it was turned into a sewer.
16:13 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> It was like the revenge of the Effra
16:14 #effra_streams: < Rachel> It flooded Herne Hill very badly, twice, both relatively recently
16:14 #effra_streams: < Jane> You can't keep a river down! Really I can see it. It just needs political and popular will and a redeployment of cash.
16:14 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Herne Hill was originally where the 3 tributaries of the Effra met to form the main river channel, and the whole landscape still funnels water down to the area by the station
16:14 #effra_streams: < web7355> I love it
16:15 #effra_streams: < Jane> Look up Samuel Scott's painting of the River Fleet at Blackfriars. Amazing mind-expanding painting from 18th century, before they agreed the river had to be covered.
16:15 -!- web7355 is now known as KoreanSamurai
16:16 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> I guess those storys and ideas are heightened in this moment of lockdown where we are starting to see resets or push backs on human intervention on the environment
16:16 #effra_streams: < Jane> The rivers being covered... what an admission of failure. Let's spend a ton of cash sewerising the rivers to solve the problem of people drinking the water they pour their waste into. Getting cholera...
16:16 #effra_streams: < KoreanSamurai> I can be in zen with river effra
16:16 #effra_streams: < otter> Ironic, isn't it
16:17 #effra_streams: < Jane> They could have spent a ton of cash supplying people with drinking water and educating people about water and health.
16:17 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Similar to the entirely hard-engineering solution to the wastewater overflows into the Thames
16:17 #effra_streams: < Rachel> The Tideway Tunnel
16:17 #effra_streams: < Jane> Yep
16:18 #effra_streams: < Jane> I deeply feel that the sewerising of London's rivers during the 18th and 19th centuries was totally linked to empire and capitalism
16:18 #effra_streams: < Rachel> While some hard engineering was necessary, pouring all the money into a supersewer with no consideration of Sustainable Drainage (SuDS) seems short sighted
16:18 #effra_streams: < Louise> Basement digs are also interrupting the water table
16:18 -!- web14 is now known as Benjamin
16:18 #effra_streams: < Jane> Totally Rachel
16:18 #effra_streams: < Jane> and Louise
16:18 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> the area here and the streetworks are quite mundane.. there's something genuinely surprsing: to find these sounds in a hole in the ground
16:18 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> the builders on site had been listening to it
16:19 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I should explain that SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) is a very boring name for very cool things like green roofs, rain gardens, de-paving etc
16:19 #effra_streams: < Jane> yes wonderfully powerful. The life beneath.
16:19 #effra_streams: < Louise> It's really magical
16:19 #effra_streams: < Jane> I'm all for SuDS!
16:19 #effra_streams: < Jane> Harvesting water, protecting watercourses
16:19 #effra_streams: < Jane> so important
16:20 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Didn't that cholera situation tie into the case with John Snow and what he found out about the drinking water being contaminated by sewage and it started the major talks about irrigation leading to more modern sewage architecture. Think it was Vauxhall water company which caused all the issues.
16:20 #effra_streams: < KoreanSamurai> How does it sound so beautiful?I am feeling Effra in real time in Korea.
16:20 #effra_streams: < Rachel> My full job title when I took over the Lost Effra project was Community Sustainable Drainage Systems Project Officer which was a bit of a mouthful! But that Community part was important
16:20 #effra_streams: < Jane> yes Benjamin... all connected, at the same time
16:21 #effra_streams: < Jane> Plus the competition to solve the problem of cholera and the Great Stink of shit on the Thames foreshore at low tide which stopped the house of parliament from being able to sit.
16:21 #effra_streams: < Jane> [haha]
16:21 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Kids loved that bit when I taught it in schools!
16:21 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Also intresting in relation to massive sewage project happening in Vauxhall now. With massive, what they are calling super sewers punching massive areas of Vauxhall
16:21 #effra_streams: < otter> KoreanSamurai we are all connected to each other. Interdependent and cannot be separated
16:21 #effra_streams: < Jane> Rachel yes kids love to talk shit
16:21 #effra_streams: < Rachel> haha
16:21 #effra_streams: < Jane> yes, super shit, supersewr
16:21 #effra_streams: < otter> Benjamin it looks like a artificial waterfall in the picture
16:22 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Haha
16:22 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Benjamin yes you're right, that's the Tideway Tunnel I mentioned earlier
16:22 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> I remember Helen Spring, Rachel Dowse's colleague at LWT Lost Effra.. had this big photograph of a diy de paving project in Oregon..
16:22 #effra_streams: < Jane> nice
16:22 #effra_streams: < Louise> As we enter into a period of increased water crises - along with our desperate need to engage with nature, what urgent action should we be doing
16:22 #effra_streams: < Rachel> grant_s_c where the community came out with sledgehammers? I think I know the one!
16:22 #effra_streams: < Jane> aha, new sounds!
16:23 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> it was kind of an inspiration for the Southwell Rd SuDS garden
16:23 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Oops it's cut out for me again, bear with me while I refresh...
16:23 #effra_streams: < Jane> Louise one of my colleagues says... protect and restore rivers, plant trees.
16:23 #effra_streams: < Jane> trees = the best antidote to climate change and floodrisk
16:23 -!- web2842 is now known as Rachel
16:24 #effra_streams: < web55> Really love this
16:24 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> it seems to pick up a bunch of other sounds coming through the tubes
16:24 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Louise for ideas of what we can do on an individual level, Helen created an amazing guide which can be downloaded here https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-05/living-with-rainwater_0.pdf
16:24 #effra_streams: < Louise> wasnt there a plant a tree campaign 80/90's? We need to green-up London
16:25 -!- web5029 is now known as Benjamin
16:25 #effra_streams: < Jane> There were two main solutions to the cholera and stink of effluent in 19th Century... the Earth Closet (EC) and the Water Closet (WC)
16:25 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> we are moving
16:25 #effra_streams: < otter> oh wow! Thanks for sharing Benjamin
16:25 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Right tree in the right place though! There are issues with mass tree planting campaigns but generally trees = good!
16:25 #effra_streams: < Jane> Earth Closet would have led to compost toilets system...
16:26 #effra_streams: < Jane> but WC won out.
16:26 #effra_streams: < Jane> wow this is bonkers
16:26 #effra_streams: < Louise> Rachel - I guess the roots
can be problematic
16:26 #effra_streams: < Jane> I'm getting lost in it
16:26 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Louise it's more that sometimes people plant trees on habitat that is just as important for wildlife, such as meadows.
16:26 #effra_streams: < Jane> yep
16:27 #effra_streams: < Jane> Imagine now the amazing friable compost if we used ECs and not WCs. Actually I'm trying to imagine.
16:27 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Interesting you mention compost toilets! I tried to get one installed at Sydenham Hill Wood, where I was warden after I finished on the Effra, but there was the risk of waste seeping into the Ambrook, a tributary of the Effra that flows there! Everything is connected...
16:28 #effra_streams: < Jane> planning, planning...
16:28 #effra_streams: < Rachel> But there's a brilliant community garden called Sydenham Gardens where they have 3 compost toilets which work amazingly
16:28 #effra_streams: < Rachel> One goes into a willow bed
16:28 #effra_streams: < Jane> one of the things we loved doing with children in schools was coming up with ways for them to understand watersheds.
16:28 #effra_streams: < Rachel> They do really good work with people recovering from addiction
16:28 #effra_streams: < Jane> Using parachute
16:28 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> we are transisioning, moving across towards the ourfall
16:28 #effra_streams: < Jane> wow this is so amazing
16:28 #effra_streams: < Louise> The River Effra inspired us to curate a programme at Gasworks
16:29 #effra_streams: < Jane> Maria, Dawn, Grant, where is the actual microphone
16:29 #effra_streams: < Jane> ?
16:29 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> the Albert Embankment in SE1
16:29 #effra_streams: < Jane> but not in the river
16:29 #effra_streams: < Jane> tunnel
16:29 #effra_streams: < Jane> on the foreshore?
16:29 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> no it is an air mic by the river
16:30 #effra_streams: < Rachel> grant_s_c was in the tunnel I think
16:30 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> yes
16:30 #effra_streams: < Rachel> but Maria is mixing between the different recordings on the fly (very impressive!)
16:31 -!- otter is now known as lenette
16:31 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> in fact we are recording for documentation but the streams are live
16:31 #effra_streams: < web30> Very live
16:31 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> The whole page and live stream is really impressive
16:31 #effra_streams: < Jane> it's amazing
16:31 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Interesting fact: Thames Water released £20 million to be spent on SuDS by 2020, but almost all of it went to the 9 Elms development
16:32 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Of course it did... sounds about right
16:32 #effra_streams: < Jane> Hmm, is that the private development where Damian Hirst has a whopping place
16:32 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> haha there *is something lively about it - as something that can convene and inspire actions..
16:32 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> over time
16:32 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> It's the massive regeneration zone happening in Vauxhall
16:32 #effra_streams: < Rachel> So the building work we can hear here is probably work on the Tideway Tunnel
16:32 #effra_streams: < Jane> 'regeneration'
16:32 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> The locals have started referring to it as mini Manhattan
16:33 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I heard it called Dubai on Thames because of all the skyscrapers
16:33 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> never like minis
16:33 #effra_streams: < Jane> I live 3 miles from the river Thames in Kent and on a still day we can hear the engines of cargo ships.
16:33 #effra_streams: < Louise> Super sewers and right next to Gasworks, artist residency that's in its 25th year
16:33 #effra_streams: < Jane> Can you imagine what this noise and the vibrations are doing to the aquatic life
16:33 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> massacre
16:33 #effra_streams: < Jane> The same for when they are pile-driving for marine Wind Farms
16:33 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Even the Thames Clippers have a real impact on wildlife in the Thames
16:34 #effra_streams: < Jane> yep
16:34 #effra_streams: < Jane> It's the industrial scale that is a challenge.......
16:34 #effra_streams: < Louise> It can cause them immense stress
16:34 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Although once Marine Wind Farms are installed, they often become havens for wildlife because shipping can't move through them
16:34 #effra_streams: < Jane> yes htat's true but....
16:34 #effra_streams: < Jane> I know loads of studies have been done on that.
16:35 #effra_streams: < Jane> wow... no water, just industrial plant
16:35 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> we lost the river.
16:35 #effra_streams: < Jane> hello fella!
16:35 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Haha!
16:35 #effra_streams: < Jane> are we contravening privacy
16:35 #effra_streams: < web63> oh wow
16:35 #effra_streams: < web54> Planes are back
16:35 #effra_streams: < web63> who is chatting
16:35 #effra_streams: < Jane> we are. data protection
16:35 #effra_streams: < web63> hahahahah
16:36 #effra_streams: < Jane> I have some pieces from a poem by a young writer I worked with, Shezara Francis. Inspired by the Effra. Which runs through Brixton...
16:36 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Oh please share!
16:37 #effra_streams: < Jane> "At a confluence where forces collide;The webbing of fingers, together tied andFed into a hand that tries To wade through inkwaters. It finds itselfStirring what is hidden deep beneath the surface.
16:37 #effra_streams: < Jane> [formatting gone sorry]
16:37 #effra_streams: < Jane> Scarring etched lightly to written signs -Ecosystems once thrived, memorialisedDeforming the ‘V’s but dotting the ‘i’sWithered watery limbs reach out to remindThat on which we’re held upright proves as Sincere as the flicker of light on waves.
16:38 #effra_streams: < Jane> Rhythms and flows once steady as clocksNow whispers on peaks and sighs into troughsWhich utter the echoes of lifelines lostThese changes imposed beyond the true costAnd the city of lights keepsticking and twinkling along
16:38 #effra_streams: < Jane> The city of rivers pulses faintly, meandering talesLong since bottled and washed away;Wandering senselessly through tissue and veins,What happens when you cut a lifeline?
16:38 #effra_streams: < Jane> Buried by skin as thick as concrete,Voice stifled and muffled, confined betweenCanopies through which sun can't seep and the bed on which the rivers sleepTheir indefinite, deprived solitaries -Vessels now only for foreign bodiesDiscarded, disposed, out of sight, out of mind.Shezara FrancisFrom a freewrite inspired by Effra.
16:39 #effra_streams: < Rachel> That's brilliant
16:39 #effra_streams: < Louise> Beautiful
16:39 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Really nice!
16:39 #effra_streams: < Jane> She saw the river's fate as a metaphor for silencing.
16:39 #effra_streams: < Jane> a denial of life
16:39 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> thank you for sharing. wonderful
16:39 #effra_streams: < Louise> I love Buried by skin as thick as concrete - we concrete everything and anything
16:41 #effra_streams: < Jane> yes.
16:41 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Helen ran several art workshops with local primary schools along with a local artists, they ended up with an exhibition at Pop Brixton and their designs went into a mosaic that's in the middle of her de-paved traffic island on Lowden Road
16:41 #effra_streams: < Jane> After the euphoria comes the downer.
16:42 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> In Ruskin Park, near the Southwell Rd garden, some new ponds appeared
16:42 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> spontaneosly
16:42 #effra_streams: < Jane> Rachel nice!
16:42 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> Yeah - people were surprised
16:42 #effra_streams: < Jane> the rivers will always return
16:42 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> do we need to bring back the water
16:42 -!- web59 is now known as Benjamin
16:42 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Ah Ruskin Park I think had a really large scale SuDS programme
16:42 #effra_streams: < grant_s_c> is it me, or did we lose the stream?
16:42 #effra_streams: < Jane> Unearth the lot.
16:43 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Although I might be thinking of Burgess...
16:43 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> it is Dawn
16:43 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> I think silencing really hits the story of the Effra on its head. We just Effra in the programme to look at the hidden, suppressed and controlled history of Vaxuall. And as the current situation developed it became about a form of teaching out, with tributes, echoes and being connected is the form of hope and possibility Effra could become to mean.
16:43 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> no it is still on
16:43 #effra_streams: < Jane> Benjamin fascinating
16:43 #effra_streams: < Jane> What was that project?
16:44 #effra_streams: < Jane> the river has dried up symbolically
16:44 #effra_streams: < Jane> can anyone else hear it?
16:44 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Oh starting to hear it again...
16:44 -!- grant_s_c [5284de3d@185.181.117.6] has quit [Quit: Ping timeout (120 seconds)]
16:44 #effra_streams: < Rachel> If your sound has cut out, try refreshing the page, I had to a couple of times
16:44 #effra_streams: < Jane> it's back
16:45 #effra_streams: < Rachel> you'll have to rename yourself again though
16:45 #effra_streams: < Louise> Effra is back!
16:45 #effra_streams: < Rachel> there it is!
16:45 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Kind of the think we had about the current programme So renember the liquid ground, for
which we have been in dauilgue with Soundcap to commission this
16:45 -!- web733 is now known as jane
16:46 -!- web7 is now known as g_s-c
16:46 #effra_streams: < Louise> jane originally for Gasworks artist residency
16:46 #effra_streams: < jane> phew i really needed to hear water again after all that mega-infrastructure pounding
16:46 #effra_streams: < jane> ah thanks Louise
16:46 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> it s intense - building work
16:46 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I definitely used to feel as though I was apprenticed to the Effra, partly as I was the
only one working on the project in the office, so I used to think of the Effra as my boss!
16:46 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> actually there's building work here too, but pretty small scale
16:47 #effra_streams: < jane> I love that Rachel
16:47 #effra_streams: < jane> We wondered about saying that the herons in the heronry were our bosses when we worked on
the Wandle.
16:47 #effra_streams: < jane> why not.
16:48 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> there is def some energy to these entities!
16:48 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Oh where on the Wandle? The Lost Effra had a sister project along the Wandle run by Jo
Ecclestone, she put in an amazing rain garden at Deen city farm
16:48 #effra_streams: < jane> Donna Haraway talks about multi-species becoming.
16:48 #effra_streams: < Louise> This moment of lockdown has really accentuated our need for nature and water
16:48 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> Iain Boulton thought the new water pooling up in Ruskin was the result of the combined
small scale SuDS actions going on
16:48 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> over time
16:48 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Part of the Living Wandle Landscape Partnership
16:48 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> It was quite exhilarating
16:49 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Oh nice, I know Iain, he runs a great bat walk!
16:49 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> There were some planned ponds by Froglife, which are nice
16:49 #effra_streams: < web63> Did hear ducks or crows?
16:49 #effra_streams: < web63> *Did I
16:49 #effra_streams: < jane> Rachel it was in the 90s. We put a micro-hydro turbine in the Wandle at the sluice, at the
delta (mouth) to send hydropower to local school.
16:49 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Yes, Donna Harraway. We had two performances yesterday who referenced this yesterday,
check them out if you have time, the recorded versions should be up soon! X
16:49 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Crows I think, I thought they were outside my window!
16:50 #effra_streams: < web19> Crows at the construction site
16:50 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> but the spontaneously and with a different kind of feel: lots of water started appearing..
Iain thought the aquifers were rcharging
16:50 #effra_streams: < jane> oh great Benjamin
16:50 #effra_streams: < Rachel> jane great! Although I guess it would have been lost when they got rid of the sluice and
renaturalised the delta
16:50 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> ah we will check for sure
16:50 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> dropouts at oufall stream
16:51 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> but the water is back.
16:51 #effra_streams: < Louise> g_s-c are you still at the outfall?
16:51 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> def in harraway territory..
16:51 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> we brought the water back
16:51 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> I am at the source
16:51 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> Dawn is by the river
16:51 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> Maria has taken us back towards the start
16:51 #effra_streams: < jane> ahhhhh
16:51 #effra_streams: < Louise> I'm trying to visualise - it's really quite amazing to have the two recordings
16:52 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> The manhole here on the top of the hill in Norwood is open
16:52 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> because there's building work going on
16:52 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I should mention most of my Effra knowledge is from Jon Newman's book River Effra: South
London's Secret Spine
16:52 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Which I would reccomend
16:52 #effra_streams: < jane> keeps cutting out for me but in a way I quite like it
16:52 #effra_streams: < Rachel> g_s-c that's handy!
16:52 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Same 😂
16:52 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> ish - they wouldn't let me on the site
16:52 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Yes something appropriate in people saying they've "lost the stream!"
16:53 #effra_streams: < jane> tap on, tap off
16:53 #effra_streams: < Louise> It's water was described as 'sparkling'
16:53 #effra_streams: < jane> everything on order
16:53 #effra_streams: < jane> We have a bottle somewhere from 19th century that was for selling spring water to drink from
Norwaood
16:53 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> but they agreed to put a microphone in the hole - that's what we're hearing
16:53 #effra_streams: < jane> Norwood
16:53 #effra_streams: < jane> oooh beginning to thunder in kent.
16:54 #effra_streams: < jane> Effra will be getting torrential if it comes your way
16:54 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Back in 2015 I spent 6 months on an island in the bristol channel called Flat Holm with no
natural water source. Everything was done with collected rainwater
16:54 #effra_streams: < jane> fabulous Rachel
16:54 #effra_streams: < jane> Lets strip it down!
16:54 #effra_streams: < Louise> More water butts
16:54 #effra_streams: < Benjamin> Woe Amazing
16:54 #effra_streams: < Rachel> But you could only collect in the winter, as the gulls made the roofs too messy in summer
16:55 #effra_streams: < jane> Guano in the summer, water in the winter. The ancients had it sorted
16:55 #effra_streams: < Rachel> So you had to be really aware of how much water you were using all the time
16:55 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> here to me it feels uncanny: to be listening to running water on the top of a hill
16:55 #effra_streams: < jane> where else will a river rise?
16:55 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> well springs sometimes come out of the side of a slope..
16:56 #effra_streams: < jane> yes true. I was being a bit poetic there. sorry
16:56 #effra_streams: < Rachel> If anyone wants more Effra history, here's Jon Newman's book
16:56 #effra_streams: < Rachel> https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Jon-Newman/River-Effra--South-Londons-Secret-Spine/19536785
16:56 #effra_streams: < jane> ooh thanks
16:57 #effra_streams: < Louise> thanks Rachel
16:57 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> there's something here that de stablizes - the volume of water - still - after all the
pubilicity - they way it still runs
16:57 -!- web33 is now known as Benjamin
16:57 #effra_streams: < Rachel> And here's Tom Bolton's book of walks, which is how I knew to tell Grant about the place
he's now recording!
16:57 #effra_streams: < Rachel> https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Tom-Bolton/Londons-Lost-Rivers--A-Surface-Dwellers-
Guide/7496977
16:57 #effra_streams: < jane> Thank you Soundtent. This has been amazing for me. Just the tech of listning live and being
in conversation. Lond live the beautiful Effra.
16:57 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> since 'still waters' and still..
16:58 #effra_streams: < web97> London's siren..
16:58 #effra_streams: < Louise> Lots of positive energy from Effra today
16:58 #effra_streams: < web63> oh I am feeling the river pouring down at me now
16:58 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> yeah - what's that book? ich bin nicht stiller?
16:58 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> we are not stiller
16:59 #effra_streams: < jane> We commissioned curator Laura Plant to respond to the unearthing of rivers and she made this
print work and audio piece "Still Waters, Still"
16:59 #effra_streams: < jane> https://www.google.com/search?q=still+waters+still+laura+plant&
sxsrf=ALeKk02zDsWSCcmaaqApD1_xIQmaqgN9vw:1592319495824&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=Y0Du5dFFB7laWM%253A%252Cxx60H_qxgekJWM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRI02k5wE1QOgoj6QneYLSo52gSbA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijnquvzIbqAhWDQkEAHQncAQsQ9QEwBXoECAgQBw&biw=1280&bih=549#imgrc=Y0Du5dFFB7laWM
16:59 #effra_streams: < jane> oops i meant https://soundcloud.com/user-451892828/still-waters-still
16:59 -!- web2 is now known as Glenn
16:59 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> yes! i was thinking of that..
16:59 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> a lovely title
16:59 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> very low on batteries
16:59 #effra_streams: < jane> yep. Shezara's poem is on the print. Really nice.
17:00 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> up here
17:00 #effra_streams: < web82> Might rain
17:00 -!- web8970 is now known as Rachel
17:00 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> that might be me for now
17:00 #effra_streams: < jane> It was very exciting to have KoreanSamurai with us
17:00 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Ah is the stream over now?
17:00 #effra_streams: < jane> Thank you everyone. The river has flowed
17:00 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> thank you all
17:00 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Yes thanks to everyone who joined us, this was great!
17:00 #effra_streams: < jane> Thank you Gasworks too
17:00 #effra_streams: < Rachel> I'm gonna go say hi to my other local river, the Quaggy now
17:01 #effra_streams: < web37> Thank you all - very special
17:01 #effra_streams: < Rachel> it flows along the bottom of my road!
17:01 -!- web37 is now known as Louise
17:01 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Yes huge thanks to everyone who made this happen!
17:01 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> thank you all for listening, reacting, responding, listening
17:01 #effra_streams: < jane> Very special. Cherishing.
17:01 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> Thanks you @rca for having us, and Jane and Rachel - thank you
17:01 #effra_streams: < jane> Thanks Maria in Crete!
17:01 #effra_streams: < jane> And RCA
17:01 #effra_streams: < jane> <3
17:01 #effra_streams: < web96> Thank you guys. I feel so empty now
17:01 #effra_streams: < Louise> Thank you! Really special - Love EFFRA
17:01 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Thank you Jane and Rachel for your valued contributions
17:01 #effra_streams: < web96> <3
17:01 #effra_streams: < jane> very warm wishes to everyone.Keep well.
17:01 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Big thanks to Grant and Dawn for recording, and I guess to the builders for letting you
stick a mic down their manhole cover!
17:02 #effra_streams: < jane> bye bye all.
17:02 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> and Louise et al at RCA
17:02 #effra_streams: < g_s-c> later - bye!
17:02 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Bye everyone! I'm on twitter at @Redowse if you want to chat Effra stuff there
17:02 #effra_streams: < Louise> Thank you Maria, Grant, Dawn, Jane and Rachel!!
17:02 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> and congrats to Grant and Dawn for giving the river back its voice
17:02 #effra_streams: < Maria_SoundCamp_Effra_Streams> Stay safe.
17:02 #effra_streams: < jane> Lightning here! big drama in Kent. Bye for now.
17:03 #effra_streams: < Rachel> but mostly I post a confused mixture of nature and video games so don't feel obliged!
17:03 #effra_streams: < web92> That was excellent, thank you very much
17:03 #effra_streams: < Rachel> Bye everyone!
19:25 -!- Irssi: Disconnecting from server 185.181.117.6: [Lost terminal]
19:25 -!- Irssi: Connection lost to 185.181.117.6
--- Log closed Tue Jun 16 19:25:24 2020
Jane Trowell works with London-based arts activist research group
Platform. In May 1992, Platform created the project
Still Waters, about digging up the sewerised tributaries to the River Thames. The River Effra was one of four that Platform focused on during 30 days of public art, events, and research along the courses of the damaged rivers. In Unearthing the Effra, artist John Jordan and writer Andrea Phillips opened the Effra Redevelopment Agency in a disused shopfront at Herne Hill. ERA announced the upcoming reinstating of the river, and provoked a huge wave of interest, engagement, sometimes outrage.
For four years, London Wildlife Trust’s Lost Effra Project empowered communities along the underground River Effra to create green landscape features to increase local climate resilience and improve neighbourhoods for people and wildlife. Led by Helen Spring until 2017, Rachel Dowse took over the project until its conclusion at the end of 2018.
@effra streams is part of the programme
So remember the liquid ground, curated by Benjamin Darby, Yoojin Kang, Akis Kokkinos, Angelina Li, Lenette Lua and Louise Nason as part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art in partnership with Gasworks. It is also generously supported by Vauxhall One.
Soundcamp (2013-) are an artist collective based around Stave Hill Ecology Park in South London. We work with live audio streams in partnership with other artists, researchers and activists, to make ecological connections across scales.
soundtent.org
@soundtent
#acousticommons
Site of Effra source. May 2020. Photo: GS.
Effra outflow. June 2020. Photo: Dawn Scarfe.
Interception tunnel development. June 2020. Photo: Tideway.
Effra Redevelopment Agency. Still Waters. Platform. Herne Hill, May 1992. Photo: Platform.
South London Press cutting. 12 May 1992. Platform archive.
Southwell Road site before de-paving. 2017. Photo: Rachel Dowse.
Southwell Road SUDS garden. Lost Effra Project. London Wildlife Trust. 2017 - ongoing. Photo: Rachel Dowse.
Effra outfall. Albert Embankment. Photo: Rachel Dowse.