Tue 3 Mar
Electromagnetic radiation is everywhere. It is a broad spectrum including both visible light and invisible radiation from radio waves and microwaves used for mobile communication and wireless internet. In this conference session, electromagnetic radiation was explored –under the skin and far out in the Earth's upper atmosphere.
Dante on the rocks
“The irony of this performance is that I can’t see what I have written”. Indeed, Paradiso is pitch dark except from two tiny acid-green lights on the table in front of Martin Howse. He is taking us on a journey where he is “subjecting words to material changes” - by quoting Dante through a crystal. The audio signal from the microphone is transmitted as light and sent through the crystal. The material of the crystal is deforming the light and thereby also deforming the voice of Howse. There is something intimate about his performance, like being invited into the laboratory of a mad scientist who decided to read classic literature to you.
Photo by Pieter Kers (www.beeld.nu)
Wave police
Somewhere in West Virginia there is a radio quiet zone around a telescope area, which listens to sounds from out of space. To make sure all mobile devices are switched off -as is mandatory- there is even a local wave police. This area has become a refuge for people suffering from electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Karl Lemieux followed two women suffering from this condition and made the film Quiet Zone. “Even making the recordings was difficult because even the radiation from the equipment was bothering them. One woman was slowly losing her voice”, he explained after the screening. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is still controversial as a medical indication and the film remains rather abstract. At times I am missing facts, answers and explanations. Yet, there is something poetic about seeing the red bubbling celluloid film with the voiceover explaining how radiation feels like “molecules racing around in the body”.
From Quiet Zone, Karl Lemieux
Part of the problem
While some people are trying to escape electromagnetic radiation, others are admittedly part of the problem. James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas, forming the British sound collaboration Emptyset, have been shooting radio waves across Europe. For the project ‘Signal’, they sent off a sine wave from Berlin to the world’s longest-serving radio transmitter in Nauen. From there the signal was shot into the ionosphere as high-frequency radio waves, picked up 1000 kilometers away in France and then sent back again to the studio in Berlin. “It is not just about pointing a microphone to the universe, but letting the processes become alive”, Ginzberg explained. During the lecture, we got to listen to a short sound piece, but to me ‘Signal’ still remains a technically intriguing idea. I would be curious to hear how the sound changes over time. Radiation from the sun affects the ionosphere, but does it sound different in the morning than in the afternoon? Hopefully we can tune in again!
