ARTIST BIO

Sinead Roarty is a Sydney and New York-based creative director who bridges the fields of writing and time-based art for commercial and creative projects. She has won over 80 global awards, including two Grand Prix, and has served on international award juries, including Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the London International Awards and New York Festivals. Her short stories and essays have been published internationally and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

On the Edge was created as part of a non-traditional PhD at the University of Technology Sydney. It was recognised as the best doctoral thesis from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and awarded on the 2024 UTS Chancellor's List for ‘exceptional scholarly achievement in PhD research’.

CREDITS

I am indebted to the brilliant humans at MassiveMusic, in particular Abigail Sie and Ramesh Sathia; and Lance Gurisik, who composed the various musical interludes and commissions, including the 121-key underwater piano concerto. The actors were also invaluable collaborators: Dalara Williams—a Wiradjuri /Gumbaynggirr/ Bundjalung woman, steered me on the subtle tone and manner that Patyegarang would have used, while Rupert Degas's expert knowledge of 18th-century accents was essential for getting the various sounds of the English, Irish and Scottish colonists right. Special thanks also goes to the team at History Lab and 2SER for permission to use the excerpt of the Eora fisherwomen singing (as performed by Maddi Lyn Collier) from their wonderful Fishing for Answers podcast.

Writer/Director: Dr Sinead Roarty

Primary Supervisor: Dr Delia Falconer

Alternate Supervisor: Assoc Professor Debra Adelaide

Sound Studio: MassiveMusic

Sound Designer: Abby Sie

Composer: Lance Gurisik

Sound Editor: Madelyn Tait

Producer: Katrina Aquilia

Place-sound Singer: Deepka Ratra

Eora Fisherwoman Singer: Maddi Lyn Collier

Actors: Dalara Williams, Rupert Degas, Aimee Horne, Asher Phillips, Leeanna Walsman

SOUND NOTES

On the Edge explores South Head’s spatial history, connecting the unresolved wounds of frontier violence to the violence of self-annihilation that persists there today–237 years after Governor Arthur Phillip set up camp at the headland.[1] A conceptual thread runs through the work, allowing many entry and exit points to draw attention to the complex and conflicting narratives and breathe new life into the silent histories of this "ruptured space".[2]

Synopsis
The work starts with the familiar and goes backwards and forwards throughout time using a series of transitions. At first, the VR sound field consists of sounds you'd expect to hear if you were sitting on a bench at South Head on a sunny morning: ocean waves washing up against the cliffs, birds tweeting, leaves rustling in the wind, random ambient comforting sounds of nature.

Gradually, more unexpected sounds appear as the narrative leaps through time. The sounds are always immersive, coming from above, behind and around, as you typically hear them, so the participant feels emplaced.

A breathless jogger runs toward you from the path behind; you inevitably turn to look as the non-existent jogger runs past. A helicopter buzzes overhead—as they often do on search-and-rescue missions. A strange sound emerges—a grumbling from deep in the earth. It's the "earth-sound" (more on that later). A woman whispers in your left ear. A man whispers to your right. This couple sitting on either side of you come and go, gently steering the narrative and helping to fill in the gaps while providing a meta-discourse.

We hear an archival interview with Don Ritchie describing how many people he talked back from the edge.[3] A dog barks: Rexie, the German Shepherd, saved 30 people from jumping off the cliffs in the 1960s.[4]

Canons blast. Menzies declares war. The site is reimagined as a military zone, which it still is today with HMAS Watson sited on the northern tip. A ship crashes into the cliffs on a stormy night, and a melancholic 121-key underwater piano concerto honours the 121 passengers who perished with the Dunbar in 1857 (one key is played for each person who drowned along with 100 pianos in the cargo, now lying at the bottom of the sea).[5] [6]

We hear the arrival of the First Fleet, the landing of the scout boats at Camp Cove and Governor Arthur Phillip's men encountering the Eora fisherwomen.[7] We hear them singing in their nowies—their voices aren't silenced.[8] In an imagined conversation with Lieutenant William Dawes, the early colony’s official land surveyor by day and unofficial astronomer by night, and Patyegarang, a young Gai-mariagal woman who spoke the Gadigal language, Patyegarang signals the smallpox epidemic (Devil Devil) that killed so many Gadigal people in 1789 and gently explains a gendered spatial system that exists at South Head and that the waters around Camp Cove that the tall ships sailed over are revered as a sacred women's teaching place.[9] [10]

To further conceptualise the unsettled nature of this place, I commissioned an “earth-sound” specific to South Head. As Douglas Kahn (2013) points out in Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts, John Cage is probably the most well-known experimenter when it comes to capturing the sound of the universe, both micro and macro, but he was preceded by an engineer called Karl Jansky who recorded the sounds of the "centre of the galaxy" which were broadcast on American radio in 1933.[11] Inspired by this auditory legacy, I made many field recordings by dropping my mic into the sedimentary sandstone. The base track of the earth-sound is the "heartbeat of the earth", based on the Schumann Resonances, which are ultra-low frequencies (7.83hz) made from lightning strikes that encircle the earth. These spectral electromagnetic waves have been used in neurophysiology to treat anxiety disorders and are said to give a calming sensation to the listener , and, as an extension, to those who may be troubled.[12]

The work ends with sounds similar to those heard at the beginning: the gentle rolling of waves, the Eora fisherwoman singing to Country. It has gone full circle—the aural mise-en-scène is alive and circuitous.

Note: This site-specific soundwork is best experienced at the Don Ritchie Grove, located a few minutes’ walk from The Gap lookout.

[1] Approximately 50 suicides occur at The Gap annually. Ross, V., Koo, Y. W., & Kõlves, K. (2020). A suicide prevention initiative at a jumping site: A mixed-methods evaluation. EClinicalMedicine, 19, 100265.

[2] "Ruptured space" is a term I've coined to acknowledge a fractured sense of place, a spatial history that has been disturbed.

[3] Ritchie, Donald, 1926-2012 & Ritch, Diana, 1943- (2005-12-20). Donald Ritchie interviewed by Diana Ritch

[4] For more information on Rexie the 'Wonderdog', see https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/animals-vegetarianism/rexie-the-australian-heroine.html

[5] Power, J. (2018, 20 August 2018). How one man survived 'saddest episode' in Sydney history Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/121-dead-how-one-man-survived-saddest-episode-in-sydney-history-20180820-p4zyid.html

[6] Anonymous. (1857). A narrative of the melancholy wreck of the Dunbar [Pamphlet]. Published for the proprietors by James Fryer Sydney.

[7] Nagle, J. (1775). Memoir titled "Jacob Nagle his Book AD One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Nine May 19th". Canton. Stark County, Ohio, 1802.

[8] Karskens, G. (2011). The Colony. Allen & Unwin. In The Colony, Karskens's influential work on the early years of Sydney, she argues that a "female geography" was firmly in place and can be seen in the language used by the people of South Head to describe themselves ‘Birra Birra is the Sow and Pigs Reef off Camp Cove at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Dharawal women today still know Birra Birra, or Boora Birra, place of water, surf and fish, as a women's teaching place.' (p. 44).

[9] Gibson, R. (2012). 26 Views of the Starburst World: William Dawes at Sydney Cove 1788-91. UWA Publishing. Gibson outlines William Dawes's cultural and language exchange with Patyegarang, a young Gai-mariagal woman who spoke the Gadigal language.

[10] Fishing for answers (No. S1E5 ) History Lab, 2018. I joyously found the excerpt of the Eora fisherwomen singing when researching the fisherwomen's songs. As historian Anna Clarke explains on the podcast, "The French explorer Louis de Freycinet was so intrigued by a Sydney fisherwoman’s song in 1819, that he tried to write it down. But it’s still so elusive. We don’t know if he heard the song himself or was given the transcript". The song was created specifically for the History Lab podcast, under the guidance of Maddison Lyn Collier, a proud Gundungurra and Darug woman and singer. Allinson, T., Kopel, N., Clark, A., Sentance, N., Ella, T., & Colllier, M. L. (2018, 25 July 2018). Fishing for answers (No. S1E5 ) In History Lab. E. Lancaster & A. Clark. https://historylab.net/s1ep5-fishing-for-answers/

[11] Kahn, D. (2013). Earth sound Earth signal: energies and earth magnitude in the arts. University of California Press.

[12] Ray, R. W. (2017). Isochronic Tones in the Schumann Resonance Frequency for the Treatment of Anxiety: A Descriptive Exploratory Study (Doctoral dissertation, Saybrook University).

 ScRIPT

Scene 1: Don Ritchie Grove at Gap Park – Daybreak, late spring.

SFX: Wind gently rustles through leaves.Early morning birdsong. Waves wash against the cliffs – calming, almost meditative. Sudden footsteps approach from behind; you hear breathless panting as a jogger runs past and into the distance. Magpies squawk. 

A low rumbling, like the sound before an earthquake, rises from deep in the ground beneath you.  

Musical transition: The place-sound: tuning into South Head’s frequency.

A female voice sings the harmonic series, or natural scale. It’s underscored by the Schumann Resonance (the electromagnetic vibrational frequency known as ‘Earth’s heartbeat’ at 7.83 hertz – the same frequency as the brain’s alpha waves). Combined with the rumbling sound effect, they evoke a soundscape of South Head’s geological history.  

You overhear a couple talking, they are sitting on either side of you, they come and go, gently steering the narrative and helping to fill in the gaps while providing a meta-discourse on the narrative

WOMAN
(sitting on your left)
Did you hear that?

MAN
(sitting on your right)
Hear what? 

SFX: The rumbling gets louder, comes up from beneath where you’re sitting. 

WOMAN
(Whispers in your left ear, her voice is so close you can almost feel her breath)
Listen.

SFX: A final note, then silence. Natural atmos. 

MAN
(jokes playfully)
Was that your stomach grumbling? 

WOMAN 
(softly)
Shhhh!

MAN
(not taking her too seriously)
What? What did you hear?

WOMAN
(whispers, curious)
Here … I think I could hear, here. 

 SFX: The wind whips up. It’s disconcerting. Uneasy.  

Musical transition: The place-sound reappears as a motif – each time moving up the harmonic scale. 

Scene 2: Archival interview: Diana Ritch with Don Ritchie, the ‘Angel of The Gap’ 2012

SFX: A helicopter approaches, it gets closer, hovers above you, the propeller whips loudly.

 DIANA RITCH
Now, you’re right near The Gap, aren’t you?

DON RITCHIE
Yep, yeah. This is called Gap Park, just opposite here.

DIANA 
Just opposite you is Gap Park. And um, this is a notorious place for suicides isn’t it?

DON 
That’s correct.

DIANA 
You have been known to help people at this time. 

DON
Yeah …

DIANA 
When did you start doing this?

DON 
Well, almost from the time we moved in. I mean, in those days there was a tram line that went past here down to Watsons Bay and there was a stop just over where the bus stop is now. 

SFX: An old tram rattles past – almost like it’s passing through you.

DIANA
What do you say to people?

DON
Would you like to come over and have a cup of tea and talk about it?

DIANA
Have they ever come over?

DON
Oh, yes. Yes, quite a few.

DIANA
Really? It must be very emotional with some of them.

DON
Oh yeah, yeah.

DIANA
Do they tell you their stories?

DON
Yes, some do.

DIANA
It must affect you.

DON
Ah, I get used to it now.

DIANA
Oh, it must. But you keep doing it.
How many people would you say you’ve saved?

DON
Well, I don’t know. They worked it out that over the times,
if it was four times a year, and it would be four times a year in any year, even now, it’d be four times a year that’s 160, and I’m sure it’d be a lot more than that because, as I say, I don’t keep notes on them. 

Musical transition: The place-sound. 

Scene 3: Effy Nagy, owner of Rexie the dog who saved over 30 lives in the 1960s, reconstructed archival interview.

SFX: Evening. The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs in the distance as if heard from within a domestic space. Wind chimes. TV in the background. Crickets chirping. 

German Shepherd barking persistently.

EFFY NAGY
(Standing to the right of you, she calls out to the dog and slaps her thighs)
Rexie! Good girl, Rexie. Good girl. 
SFX: The dog runs back to her owner, panting.

EFFY
Rexie seemed to have a sixth sense; if anybody put a leg over that fence, Rexie sensed there was something wrong and would literally drag me up. She used to sit and watch the people and see that everything is in order and if it wasn’t she would interfere and just see to it that nothing happened to anybody up there. 

SFX: The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs.  

Musical transition: The place-sound. 

Scene 4: Archival radio broadcast: Menzies’ announcement of WWII 1939

SFX: Radio crackling, changing stations.

RADIO ANNOUNCER
Here is the Prime Minister of Australia, The Right Honourable RG Menzies…. 

PRIME MINISTER ROBERT MENZIES
Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you, officially, that in consequence of a persistence by Germany and her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that as a result Australia is also at war. 

SFX: Air raid sirens turn to fog horns. Waves, canons. Atmos continues under Woman and Man as they observe events around them.

WOMAN 
You know this was a military post? There are underground tunnels everywhere.

MAN
Here?

WOMAN 

Yeah, here.  

Musical transition: The place-sound. 

Scene 5: Sinking of the Dunbar
When the passenger ship Dunbar crashed into South Head’s cliffs on a stormy night in August 1857, killing 121 passengers and crew, media reports described the shipwreck as the greatest tragedy the young colony had experienced. A hundred pianos were amongst the cargo.  

SFX: Waves smashing, a massive storm, thunder, smashing of timber.  Lightning cracks. Gulls caw from their nests in the cliff below. Destruction continues under Woman and Man speaking.

WOMAN
See down there? That’s where the Dunbar sank in the 1850s.

MAN
That’s a long way down.

WOMAN
Yeah. No one could get down there to save them in the storm.
They just saw them getting smashed up against the rocks.

MAN
Or get eaten up by sharks.

WOMAN
Yeah.True.

MAN
Any survivors?

WOMAN
Just one. Then he became a lighthouse keeper.

MAN
Sounds like they needed one.

WOMAN
(scoffs)
Yeah. 121 people died. It was the worst tragedy Sydney had experienced.

ABORIGINAL WOMAN
You mean the worst tragedy the settlers had experienced.

WOMAN
(reflective)
Yeah.
You can dive the wreck – there were 100 pianos in the cargo and they’re all still down there.

MAN
(surprised)
100 pianos?

WOMAN
100 ghost pianos lying at the bottom of the sea.  And 121 ghosts.

 Dunbar Underwater Eulogy – a 121-key composition
121 Piano keys are played as a eulogy for the passengers and crew who drowned.
Musical transition: The place-sound.

Scene 6: Eora Fisherwomen singing at Camp Cove 
EORA FISHERWOMAN 
(Tuning her voice, she starts humming a tune to herself, which appears again later. It is soft, tender, carefree.)
Hmmm, hmm…

WOMAN
Did you hear that?

MAN
No 

SFX: Waves washing against the boat. The wind flaps through the sails and ropes. 

Scene 7: First Fleet waiting at Botany Bay before sailing into Sydney Harbour.
CONVICT MOTHER
(Tenderly teaching her young child the names of the First Fleet)
Tell me the names again.

CONVICT CHILD
(Repeats names as if learning off rote)
Friendship.
Charlotte.

 CONVICT MOTHER
Charlotte, that’s it.

CONVICT CHILD
Alexander. Um …

CONVICT MOTHER
(Tenderly)
Very good.

CONVICT CHILD
Fishburn.
Scarborough.

CONVICT MOTHER AND CHILD
(slowly)
Prince of Wales
Lady Penrhyn
Borrow-dale
Golden Grove
Supply…

CONVICT MOTHER
And the eleventh ship?

CONVICT CHILD
Sirius! 

Scene 8: Lieutenant William Dawes’ hut: An imagined conversation about smallpox During his time in the colony, Lieutenant William Dawes (1762-1836), the early colony’s official land surveyor by day and unofficial astronomer by night, engaged in a cultural and language exchange with Patyegarang  (c 1780s), a young Gai-mariagal woman who spoke the Gadigal language. Here Patyegarang signals the smallpox epidemic (Devil Devil) that killed so many Gadigal people in 1789. 

 SFX: Dawes’ small hut. A fire is crackling. It’s an intimate space. Patyegarang called Dawes ‘Mr D’.

WILLIAM DAWES
(matter-of-factly, asking her to translate)
Smallpox?

PATYEGARANG
(patiently, slowly, she is teaching him her language)
Devil Devil.

WILLIAM DAWES
Devil Devil?

PATYEGARANG
(seriously)
Yes, Mr D. Devil Devil. 

 Musical transition: The place-sound.

 
Scene 9: Reconstruction of Nagel’s journal entry: 21 January 1788 Arrival at Camp Cove
Jacob Nagel (1761-1841) was an American sailor on the First Fleet who joined Governor Arthur Phillip and a small group of officers on a recce of what would become Sydney Cove several days before the Fleet entered the harbour on January 26. They spent their first night on Australian land at Camp Cove. 

 SFX: Creaking of a ship offshore. The officers are in their cabins.  Nagle writes in his journal – dabs nib in ink, turns page, and starts reading his entry aloud. 

 JACOB NAGLE
Journal entry, 21 January 1788:
We went on board three boats to go around to Port Jackson.
We arrived in the afternoon and surveyed ’round.
Then coming on dark, we landed on a beach on the south side and pitched our tents for the night.
We named it ‘Camp Cove’.

Scene 10: William Dawes’ hut 2: An imagined conversation about the Fleet arriving

Fire is crackling. 

PATYEGARANG
(whispers gently)
Bir-ra Bir-ra.

WILLIAM DAWES
(repeats)
Birra Birra?

PATYEGARANG
These waters – around what you call Camp Cove.

WILLIAM DAWES
Birra Birra.

PATYEGARANG
Bir-ra bir-ra gal-leon.

WILLIAM DAWES
(repeats badly)
Bir-ra bir-ra gal-leon… 

DAWES AND PATYEGARANG
(both laugh)

PATYEGARANG
Bir-ra bir-ra gal-leon (means) her tribe.
This place of waters, around what you call Camp Cove, this is women’s teaching place. 

 Musical transition: The place-sound.

Scene 11: Present, in Gap Park. 
WOMAN
No one talks about it.

MAN
About what?

WOMAN
(contemplative)
All the missing bodies. 
The Suicides. Shipwreck. Smallpox.
There have been murders here. It’s like a 230-year crime scene.

MAN
Sad.

WOMAN
Yeah. And yet it’s so beautiful here at the same time.

   SFX: Cockatoos and crows, a joyous cacophony of birdlife. Gentle waves lapping the shore. A boat rocking. 

Scene 12: Reconstruction of Nagel’s journal entry, 23 January 1788: first fish 
On 23 January 1788, Jacob Nagle caught a fish at Camp Cove. He recorded the event in his journal: “Governor [Arthur Phillip] observed the fish [and said]“you are the first white man that ever caught a fish in Sidney Cove [sic] where the town is to be built.”

GOVERNOR ARTHUR PHILLIP
(Calls out to the sailor at the hull in a firm manner.)
Nagle!

JACOB NAGLE
(American sailor on Sirius, respectful, to attention.)
Yes Gov’ner!

GOVERNOR ARTHUR PHILLIP
(Jolly)
You know, you are the first white man that ever caught a fish in Sydney Cove!

JACOB NAGLE
(cheekily)
First of many Gov’ner! 

 SFX: Men laugh. Waves gently washing up on the beach.

CAPTAIN DAVID COLLINS
(confounded)
Hey, look there, have you seen the women in canoes? 
Singing while fishing?

Scene 13: Eora Fisherwoman singing

Hmmm, hmm …

WOMAN
Did you hear that?

MAN
Actually, I did. 

WOMAN 
(breathes relief)

MAN
Let’s stay awhile.

WOMAN 
Yeah. Let’s.

WOMAN & MAN
(whisper in both ears)
Can we sit here with you?

The place-sound transitions to the song of the Eora fisherwoman singing and the waves from the beginning. 

SFX: Zinger