Projects

For the past three years Ackroyd & Harvey have been documenting the contrails (vapourtrails) left by aircraft in the skies above their Surrey based studio close to Gatwick airport, amassing hundreds of photos and studying the way that on certain days the contrails spread out to form almost complete cloud cover.

On the 15th of April 2010 the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted, spewing clouds of fine ash into the atmosphere and forcing unprecedented closure of the majority of European airspace. For six days the skies above the UK were free of air traffic, providing a unique opportunity to experience life without the pollution air travel causes both acoustically and visually.

Out of the Blue (3 minutes) is a visual meditation on the formation of contrails as aircraft move across the sky and an acoustic contemplation on the power of silence and beauty of blue when the sky is momentarily stilled.

Film: Ackroyd & Harvey
Camera: Dan Harvey
Edit: Amanda Loomes
Sound and music: Graeme Miller
Voice: Ackroyd & Harvey

Out of the Blue is one of six films commissioned for What On Earth, a series of short films produced by Artsadmin that look at the state of the species: at some of the pressures on our planet, issues we face now and futures we may see as a consequence of the way we live today.