An experiment is not a rehearsal

I was unprepared for making work on a recent trip to Portland, Dorset*, so found myself improvising. I used an old and basic camera to record a snatch of video, but forgot it didn't automatically record audio. So although I have a long and mysterious shot of one of the empty tunnels at the Verne High Angle Battery, I didn't manage to record the startling expletive my colleague shouted down it towards me from the opposite end. She was reading graffiti from the walls outside.

Never mind, we said, we can always come back and do it another day. But it won't have the same sense of eerie anticipation and certainly not the shock value. I won't be waiting and wondering where she is and what she'll say, while feeling slightly spooked by the semi-derelict site around me. You might think the footage would look the same, even if I don't feel the same as I record it - but it won't.

After working together on a series of spontaneous actions, we're discovering that you need to keep the camera rolling (and make sure it's working properly too). You can't treat experiments like rehearsals for the real thing. More often than not the real thing only happens once, when you least expect it, and usually with some inconvenient wind noise or the sound of a passing train in the mix. So maybe on this occasion, the silence says it all.

*I was there with fellow artists Megan Calver and Susie David to learn more about the amazing bi-annual b-side festival and the team behind it, of which more on another day.