Beneath the Counter: An Archive of the Unexplained, Old Christchurch Road, Bournemouth

This episode examines a nightclub where the expected aftermath of a night out doesn’t seem to apply. Visitors describe entering in a typical late-night state and leaving hours later noticeably restored—alert, composed, and ready for the day. Through interviews and anecdotal accounts, Trinity Pine builds a picture of a place that appears to do more than simply stay open late.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Special thanks to Artist Kim Aurow for this concept and voice acting

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

A service alley off Old Christchurch Road.
A closed engraver’s shop.
A brass plaque embedded in the tarmac that most people walk over without noticing.

When Trinity scrapes dirt from the lettering, she discovers that Granville Place is officially designated as Archaeological Overspill. What follows is the slow revelation of something extraordinary: a Roman marble foot, medieval cloister arches, and a monumental sculptural group more at home in Naples than Bournemouth.

Speaking to Nigel, the former engraver, and Ken from the Fellowship of Exchange and Loss, Trinity tries to understand how museum-grade artefacts have come to rest between bins and fire escapes — and whether anything should be done about it.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

Trinity Pine visits the Béchamel Parlour, a small establishment where people are helped to sleep through a warm béchamel immersion. You lie in a bread-lined bath while attendants ladle warm sauce over the body from the toes upward. This is a full, recorded session—slow, steady, and designed to drift you into rest.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

A watch shop closes for the fifth time.
Trinity speaks to one of the men who ran it — and uncovers how their accountant didn’t just balance books… he disrupted time.

What begins as a story of rising costs and strange invoices becomes the origin of something bigger: the prototype that made Infract possible.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

Trinity investigates a booth exchanging parking tickets for cash — no questions asked.
But what starts as a strange local service leads to something bigger: a new cryptocurrency called Infract, built on fines, friction, and shame.

Behind it all? A familiar face, and a system older than it looks.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

Food keeps arriving. Same time. Same smile. Same smell.
Trinity traces a takeaway complaint to a restaurant that burned down in 1994 — and finds something still warm inside.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

A man walks into a shop offering same-day finger removal — and spends the rest of his life trying to get it back.
Trinity investigates the phantom business, the missing evidence, and the rules of voluntary disappearance.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth

Welcome to Beneath the Counter — a surreal audio mystery series hosted by Trinity Pine, archivist of Old Christchurch Road.

Strange shops. Vanishing menus. Complaints that can’t be withdrawn. Each episode investigates one impossible transaction — from a finger removal boutique to a restaurant that still delivers from the past.

Beneath the Counter is part of a wider art project exploring speculative shopfronts, urban storytelling, and the bureaucratic uncanny. It combines fictional podcasting, street-level interventions, and AI-generated ephemera to imagine a high street haunted by capitalism, memory, and desire.

Created by Lisa Moro, Artist in Residence, Old Christchurch Rd, Bournemouth