Somerset House Studios | Taut Line: Beatrice Dillon, 2018

Studio’s resident Beatrice Dillon presented Taut Line, a multi-channel sound installation co-commissioned in partnership with Abandon Normal Devices. The piece premiered at The Great Cave, Peak Cavern Derbyshire in September as part of the AND 2017 festival programme.

At Somerset House, Dillon reconfigured the work for The Deadhouse, a rarely accessible underground tunnel running beneath the courtyard, clad with headstones dating from the 1600s, the remnants of a chapel that was formally located on the site.

Taking the history of rope-making at Peak Cavern as a starting point, and in particular the intricate roping method developed there known as the 'Marrison Loop’, Taut Line used the principle of alternating, extending and interlocking six individual sine waves. The unusual architectural acoustics of The Deadhouse simultaneously condition and are conditioned by the work.