The telluro-geo-psycho-modulator is the latest experiment in a series of playful explorations and elaborations of a general thesis extracted from the neuroscientist Michael Persinger’s work, that our brain states are modulated by the interference patterns created by our immersion in natural weak geomagnetic fields, and that such patterns cause the feeling of “anomalous experiences” including those of ghosts or god.
The workshop aims to begin equipping participants with a method to explore such potentialities between the earth and our psyches through the construction of an experimental interface (developed with Martin Howse).
A short introduction (20 min) to participants will briefly cover the theory of weak geo-magnetic field effects on psyche, including demonstrating an entirely synthetic electronic amplifier/helmet configuration. This will ground participants in both the practical and playful nature of the project.
The brain is electro-chemical, and the existence of fundamental commonalities between all 7 billion human brains by which a similar physical stimulus can affect them is not a new concept – however, this workshop tests the idea that it is the induction by very low electromagnetic fields that disrupt a sense of self through the creation of anomalous experiences.
In the workshop particpants will build a simple circuit with which to test this thesis by connecting the earth’s telluric currents directly to our brains. On the second day we will then test the circuits outdoors in Epping Forest.
During the workshop and field trip participants will build electronic circuits and hand wind copper coils to construct:
The workshop is estimated to take around 4-6 hours for around 8 or so participants. All materials are supplied, however if participants have a soldering iron, please bring it along.
Each participant is asked to pay £15. This is to cover material costs – participants get to keep their circuits which can also be used with other circuits (eg. audio).
Blue Sausage Infant is the solo electronic project from Washington DC’s Chester Hawkins. Active on the live scene since the late 1980s, he’s shared the stage with touring and local luminaries, whose stylistic echoes radiate his own productions. Hints from prog, industrial, dark ambient, and noise all come across on BSI’s first LP release, Negative Space. Issued on Zeromoon in gorgeous packaging and colored 180-gram vinyl, Negative Space’s three tracks combine into a diverse snapshot of Hawkins’ musical creativity and expertise using a fair number of electronic and other diverse instruments (including electric toothbrush), all helpfully enumerated on the inner sleeve.
Side one is the single solo track “Motion Parallax,” a drifting space music riff that evolves through increasingly soupy accompaniments. From the Berlin overtones that emerge from the opening swirling white noise to a tribal electronic rhythm that reminded me of the proto-noise-punk band Chrome, BSI creates a diorama of timbral and harmonic landscapes. A distorted voice just out of comprehension earnestly and repeatedly strives, but fails to make herself meet and fuck understood, channeling an obscure Samuel Beckett character. Perhaps because of its murkiness, present even in the background of the rhythmic passages, Motion Parallax carries a lulling quality, a hard-edged long-form ambient work.
By contrast, side two opens considerably further towards krautrock with the title track, thanks to the assistance of a guitarist, a drummer, and a fourth performer on percussion and electronics. For all that side one referenced ambient, “Negative Space” draws from post-rock, with sustained guitar textures, rhythmic bass riffs, four-bar phrase structures, and a continuous dramatic build over the fourteen-minute performance. The side concludes with the shorter solo track “Subferal,” dense electronics dotted with sirens and alarms, led by an obsessive oscillation that starts on an intense single note and dissolves into swizzling distortion.
Originally posted on Furthernoise: http://www.furthernoise.org/index.php?url=page.php&ID=430&iss=96
A performance by Alexandre Burton and Julien Roy
Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD), Calgary, Canada, November 11, 2010
“We are absorbed by the beauty of electronics absorbing into the air,” is how Burton and Roy described their literally electrifying, and often frightening forty-five minute audiovisual performance of high-voltage electromagnetic disturbances. The event necessitated everyone present turning off their cell phones, i-whatever’s, and cameras to avoid provoking 800,000 volts of raw Frankenstein-like crackling electricity from throwing out a surprise lightening bolt and zapping an unsuspecting audience member.
POWEr’s instrument is an audio-modulated Tesla Coil with its own “boutique” ground that resembles a stripped down tuba with lots of copper colored coils. A bent over piece of metal culls the tail end of the generated electricity so it can be captured by a high-speed camera, and processed and re-purposed. Both Burton and Roy, who trained in contemporary classical music training in composition and electro-acoustics at the University of Montreal added, “We like noise so we try not to do melody, except at the end.”
The piece is raw and alive, and no photograph or video can substitute for sitting in the line of fire of a sparking raw electrical feed. It smells tangy and metallic; a by-product of its ozone inducing properties and you can practically taste the microscopic particulate matter its hybrid frisson generates on your tongue. The sheer shock of its taser-like impact up close and personal is mesmerizing and anesthetizing but its actual menace doesn’t lie in its extreme voltage, but in its electrical amps, which is the charge that actually goes through you. “If the amp is low it just goes onto your skin, but if the amp is high you can die,” the artists sanguinely informed the audience in a Q & A after the performance. They also explained it took six months to come up with the idea, and another six months to make he piece not explode.
The creator’s studio site Artificiel.org says they are interested in “the desubjectification of sound and image materials, R&D creativity as the consequence of artistic research and the building of a genuine digital performance practice.” This idea is coupled with an astute technical know-how. To capture such an electrifying event the camera runs in a special “forever mode” that can be wiped clean at their discretion. The electromagnetic arc produced by the Tesla coils lasts for just a few very bright nanoseconds, so using a mechanical shutter is impractical. The ISO, dampened down to 50, allows a baseline sensitivity to actually capture the image.
Once captured, the images are transferred to the computer via a high-speed uncompressed connection, where recording, filtering and geometric adjustments are made. The visual data is handled as sound, allowing quick and precise images to be processed on the fly. “It is also a very intuitive approach to “synesthesia,” Burton said as the software abstracts both sound and visuals in the same way. Logic Pro and MAX/MSP/Jitter manipulate duration, signal, timbre, and resonance live time as technology and geekiness combine with a dash of old style showbiz razzle dazzle to produce a truly hair raising show.
(Images above are excerpts from a performance in Québec city 2010)
View video of Alexandre Burton’s and Julien Roy’s live performance here http://vimeo.com/9816953
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