Orfordness

Giant Desert Cats is an atmospheric journey into the eerie, windswept landscape of Orfordness, a place steeped in secrecy, history, and desolation. Once a site of clandestine military experiments, this remote shingle spit on the Suffolk coast now stands as a haunting relic of the past, where whispers of history linger in the ruins. The film, accompanied by the evocative compositions of Marta Salogni and Tom Relleen, weaves a spellbinding audio-visual experience inspired by their album Music for Open Spaces.

At its core, Giant Desert Cats merges the foreboding, hypnotic sounds of the album’s title track with ghostly Super 8mm footage, capturing the stark beauty and haunting emptiness of Orfordness. The film transports viewers through the remnants of a once-classified military testing ground, where abandoned structures and shifting landscapes serve as silent witnesses to decades of secrecy. As the camera sweeps across decaying buildings and desolate expanses, the track’s unsettling yet mesmerising soundscape amplifies the sense of mystery, inviting the audience into a liminal space where the past and present blur.

What began as a creative conversation over a cup of tea evolved into a deeply immersive exploration of place, memory, and sonic storytelling. Giant Desert Cats is a testament to the power of music and imagery to evoke emotions both primal and profound—an experience that lingers long after the final frame.

2023 - Orfordness - Giant Desert Cats

Inspiration and Journey to Orfordness

Following my exploration of the enigmatic sound mirrors in Dungeness for the Future Echo music video project with The Oscillation, I found myself drawn to landscapes imbued with a similar eerie desolation—places where remnants of the past linger like ghosts, etched into barren terrains. My research led me to Orfordness, a place shrouded in mystery, once a top-secret military installation and now a nature reserve under the stewardship of the National Trust. For years, I harboured the idea of visiting this enigmatic site, diving deeper into its history through research and literary references. Among the most evocative depictions was that of German writer W.G. Sebald in The Rings of Saturn, where he describes Orfordness as desolate and derelict, haunting and wild, beautiful and bleak.

a barren landscape with old buildings and war machinery

Like the sound mirrors, Orfordness harbours a history steeped in military secrecy. Scattered across its vast shingle expanse are relics of the Cold War, none more striking than the imposing structures known as the Pagodas—facilities built between 1953 and 1966 for environmental testing of atomic bombs. While no nuclear material was reportedly present, these tests involved high-explosive initiators, meaning any failure could have resulted in catastrophic explosions. The tests were conducted remotely, and the enormous reinforced structures were designed to absorb the impact of any mishap. Standing against the endless horizon, these buildings—both mighty and ominous—seemed to call to me, compelling me to document their presence through the lens of my Super 8mm camera.

In 2016, I finally set out to capture Orfordness on film. Traveling by train to Suffolk, armed with bicycles, camping gear, and camera equipment, we embarked on a weekend of exploration along the flat rugged coastline. The journey itself felt like a passage into another realm. One overcast afternoon, we secured National Trust tickets for the boat crossing to the shingle island, stepping into a landscape where echoes of a classified past resonated beneath the guise of a nature reserve.

Despite its transformation into a sanctuary for wildlife, Orfordness retained an air of secrecy. Some areas remained strictly off-limits, not just for conservation but as lingering testaments to its once-classified operations. Undeterred, we pressed on, capturing fragments of the island’s military history—abandoned bunkers, rusting scrap metal, skeletal remains of fencing, and decaying machinery. As we approached the Pagodas, it became evident that they were still inaccessible to the public, their path blocked off. Yet, from the crest of a distant sand dune, my zoom lens allowed me to frame them from afar. In retrospect, this enforced distance lent the final footage an added layer of intrigue, reinforcing the structures’ elusive and enigmatic nature.

Like Sebald, I experienced a moment of profound realisation: The closer I came to these ruins, the more any notion of a mysterious isle of the dead receded, and the more I imagined myself amidst the remains of our own civilisation after its extinction in some future catastrophe... wandering among heaps of scrap metal and defunct machinery.

Though I never stood within the shadows of the Pagodas, my journey to Orfordness was far from in vain. The island, with its stark beauty and haunting remnants, offered a cinematic glimpse into the intersection of history, decay, and the passage of time—captured forever through the flickering frames of my film.