Your letter will be included in an artist book for the Festival of the North East by Newcastle based artist and writer Stevie Ronnie
This artwork is open to all contributions.
Victoria Bradbury
Digital artist Victoria Bradbury’s new work Witch Pricker, traces Newcastle’s witch histories back to 1649, where 30 accused women were brought forward and pricked with a pin under their petticoats. Bleeding meant innocence and reprieve; no bleeding revealed guilt:
void isSheAWitch() {
if (bleedsWhenPrickedWithPin){
notAWitch;
}
else if(doesNotBleedWhenPrickedWithPin){
isAWitch;
}};
An expert witch pricker was brought in for the examinations and was paid by the witch he found. Unsurprisingly, the majority of these pricked were discovered to be guilty and sentenced to death on the town moor. Participants are invited to prick metaphorical “witches” while sorting out guilt and innocence. A disjunction between technology and flesh is established while mediated responsibility is questioned.