Time is Away (Jack Rollo & Elaine Tierney) (UK/IE, 1978/1983)
Residency period: May-July 2024
We came to La Becque to experiment with radio; we ended up turning a tree into a listening space.
Our point of departure was crystal radio. The history and physical properties of this early form of receiver provided prompts for making new work. This gave us a framework for paying closer attention to our immediate context and thinking about forms of communications technology that require listeners to be precisely in place. In response, we made a series of cassette tapes (self-released) and radio programs (broadcast on NTS). These were titled ‘Mountain’, ‘Garden’ and ‘Lake’, and took as inspiration the most arresting features of the ‘sublime’ landscape that surrounded us. That this was both deeply familiar and deeply unfamiliar was a spur to the work we made. Our residency culminated in an installation, ‘Linden Tree’. In late May, the tree outside our studio was alive with the sound of bees buzzing; it sounded like a radio trapped between frequencies. So, we placed a ring of speakers there and presented some of the work we had made in dialogue with the landscape. We also had the opportunity to play a DJ set several times in the residence’s garden, notably at La Becque’s 5-year anniversary in May 2024.
To call La Becque a residency feels inadequate. It is a zone of fruitful possibilities where alterity, experimentation and care are encouraged. We come away with transformed ways of working, including a newly granular approach to producing music, sound and words. We are so thankful to the team and our fellow residents for making our time at La Becque so generative and nourishing. It truly was life-changing. — Time is Away
Based in London, Time is Away are a duo made up of British artist Jack Rollo (b. 1978) and Irish historian Elaine Tierney (b. 1983). Together, they explore artistic practices such as radio, research, sound art, and DJing. Resident on UK web radio NTS since 2013, their monthly show combines music with spoken word and field recordings to create a format that is part soundscape, part essay for the radio. Recognized for programming that defies categorization, their work is part of an ongoing reflection on the fragmentary, contingent, and slippery relationships between time, place, and power.
Time is Away (Jack Rollo & Elaine Tierney), La Becque, 2024, photo Matthieu Croizier, Emilien Itim and Aurélien Haslebacher