Lagerstraße

A documentary radio drama set in a former displaced persons camp in Austria. Stories from Lagerstraße, Spittal, are interwoven with a short fiction written by Elena Garton (1903 – 1972), a former resident of the camp and Andrew’s grandmother. Elena was born in the city of Sevastopol in the former Crimea. A white Russian Elena was herself a refugee of the Russian revolution before she and her two sons became displaced persons during and after WW2. Lagerstraße contrasts the vast cultural diversity that spread across Europe during and after WW2 against that of present times and the conflicted response to displaced persons today.

Background

Lagerstraße (or Lagerstrasse) has its origins in Andrew’s Master of Arts project, an outcome of which was Auslander Micro (see showreel), the earliest web interactive to employ scripted multi-layered animated dynamic HTML with an algorithmically driven soundscape. Work on Auslander Micro began in 1995 and completed in 1998. It had itself emerged from Andrew’s spoken word opera, Auslaender und Staatenlose.

Lagerstrasse picks up where both prior projects left off, completing in full Andrew’s original vision of a multi-tiered work blending spoken word narrative, field recordings, interviews, soundscapes, music and historical fiction.

Note works such as Auslander Micro may no longer function as they did in 1998. Sound files from the Master’s project are no longer accessible due to the RealAudio format no longer being supported.

Photos from the Stadtarchiv.

Sample sound works and compositions

Stratosfear

by Andrew Garton | Lagerstraße

Auslander und Staatenlose

by Andrew Garton | Lagerstraße

Status: In development.

For more information contact Andrew Garton.