This construction was developed from notes made on the night of the 6th August 1976:
 
Our first night in the house
 
Everything has been renewed
 
I notice things for the first time
 
Sizing up angles corners windows
 
Listening out for new sounds
 
The hot water tank filling
 
The fridge buzzing
 
Old familiar sounds
 
New paths will be trodden down in the fading carpet around the big old armchairs
 
The silence vibrates, only the sound of a moth flying around the bulb.

Humans are new here, up till now it’s been the territory of flies

These notes, together with two photographs taken that night of a moth flying around a light bulb, are presented on a piece of wallpaper the same as that found in the room where they were made. The wallpaper is obviously new but in certain areas there are fingernail scratches and at the centre a patch of dirt, anticipating the ageing process. The viewer is separated from the wallpaper by a layer of non-reflective glass. The paper is presented in a yew frame which has a photograph of the house before conversion embedded in it. A yew tree had been cut down outside the house during the conversion.

(1987)