THIS STORY LAST UPDATED: 17 September 2003 1501 BST Artangel puts Imber back on the map
Entering Artangel's Imber
But as the light faded, and accompanied by the Rustavi Choir, the walking house led the candle lit procession through the village and up to the ancient church of St. Giles.
VIDEO and AUDIO
Click here to listen to an interview between BBC Wiltshire's Kelly Stooke and Co-Director of Artangel, Michael Morris (28k)
Little Imber on the Down Seven Miles from any Town...
...and a good 90 miles from London.
But that didn't stop art appreciating Londoners making their way to Artangel's latest installation at Imber.
Artangel is an extraordinary organisation which has been behind some of the most provocative site-specific installations in recent years.
And Imber, nestled in the heart of the army's firing ranges on Salisbury Plain, proved an ideal canvas for their latest project.
Imber is a ghost village which disappeared off the map in 1943 when the village was requisitioned by the War Office.
Residents were given just a month to pack up their things and leave and have remained in exile ever since.
Artangel's Imber event promised to lay it to rest.
From the outset the event was clouded in speculation and mystery and attending the performance on Thursday night you could see why.
As one of the Artangel organisers remarked it's an event that's hard to describe.
Arriving by coach visitors were greeted by an enormous canvas stretched across the main entrance to the village.
A canvas printed with the image of a true chocolate box village, thatch cottages, wisteria et al.
Pushing behind the canvas was like slipping behind the scenes, leaving the magic behind and entering reality.
Albeit a ghost reality.
1 of 12- Entrance facade shows typical Wiltshire village
2 of 12- Music and light is pumped from the houses
3 of 12 - Wandering amongst the Monopoly houses
4 of 12 - A driverless car circles the square endlessly
5 of 12 - Smoke wafts from the renovated house
6 of 12 - The walking house
7 of 12 - The renovated house and neighbours
8 of 12 - The renovated house and garden
9 of 12 - Candlelit procession follows the walking house
10 of 12 - The Rustavi Choir emerge from the darkness
11 of 12 - Floodlit Imber
12 of 12 - Imber - The ghost village
From the empty shells of houses, lit from inside, pumped the sound of canned music.
A driverless Morris Minor cruised endlessly around the village square transmitting the amplified sound of a needle stuck in the groove of an old record.
The only sign of life was the wafting smoke from a single house in a terrace of gutted properties.
The house, draped with a canvas facade of a pebble dash frontage, porch and ivy clad front garden, appeared like a neat suburban idyll at odds with it's abandoned neighbours.
Having wandered around the village it was time for the walking house funeral procession.
The walking house, a canvas replica of Imber's Monopoly style houses, had been lurking Pythonesque behind trees and bushes throughout the walkabout.
But as the light faded, and accompanied by the Rustavi Choir, the walking house led the candle lit procession through the village and up to the ancient church of St. Giles.
Imber's church is the most intact building in the village and the venue for a new musical work.
The new work, Imber, by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli was performed live by the Rustavi Choir and the Matrix ensemble and accompanied by the Salisbury Cathedral Boys choir and a single chorister.
The music haunting, lilting and folkish seemed at home in the ancient church but failed, ultimately, to lay Imber to rest.
Imber
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