Eyes of the Docks

Digital audio composition. Part of a multidisciplinary installation project at the Port of Cork Custom House Quay in Ireland.

The old bonded warehouse at the Port of Cork Custom House Quay has been witness to the last 200 years of the history of Cork from the perspective of the lower classes: during its lifetime its function has alternated between warehouse and prison; a workplace for dockers one generation and home to criminals the next. Within the next 10 or 20 years, it will be transformed from the dark, dilapidated structure it is today into high-income apartments and specialty shops. For the first time since it was built it will house the upper crust of society, and this irony is not lost on the dockers and labourers who work there now and in the past.

For this piece I interviewed one of the dockers currently working at the warehouse, who told me about the building. As we walked through it he explained its history and told me about what it meant both for him and for the city of Cork. Passages from that interview form the backbone of the composition, and the sounds that I recorded of the building's creaks and groans provided the raw sound material.

The composition Eyes of the Docks is part of an installation project put together by Trish Edelstein at Boomerang Productions with support from the Cork Arts Council, Cork City Council's Docklands Development Programme, McCarthy Developments and Ronayne Shipping Ltd.

For more information about the Eyes of the Docks installation project, visit the Eyes of the Docks website.