**Eelektrosluching (Field Recordings)** *Glass eel plastic modelled shells, speakers, two channel audio (electromagnetic + hydrophone field recordings)* *10 min looping audio, 6 in. diam. speakers* This work presents two audio recordings taken from different recording devices, presented in two speakers that visitors can pick up and listen to. One uses a hydrophone, submerged in a stream of running water, and the other plays a recording from an electromagnetic microphone that translates oscillations in the electromagnetic field into audible sound that was taken walking through Halifax towards the water. Our electronic devices, such as computers or underwater data cables, interact with and affect the electromagnetic field. Eels (and other creatures) are able to perceive the Earth’s electromagnetic field and use it to navigate while migrating through the Oceans. --- # Eelektrosluching Have you listened to the heartbeat of your computer? In researching copper and weaving, I was lead to antennas which pick up electromagnetic waves. Antennas can actually be quite simple to make: if you coil wire, then plug it into an audio amplifier, you can create a simple device that listens to electromagnetic oscillations. This is what I did when I first was exploring in my studio, and heard the hum of the power grid when I held the little coil – like a stethoscope – near a power outlet, or the louder hum of my computer screen, and finally, a rapid clicking of my computer. Inside the smooth, silver body of my computer was a grainy, noisy little heartbeat of electrical processes taking place. ## Electric hearing What is the electromagnetic field? One of the major forces in physics, this refers to the interplay between electricity and magnetism that is all around us. It is invisible and imperceptible to humans, but through our devices we utilise it and affect it: radio, cellular networks, cables, powergrids and lines, microwaves and satellites. But so do lightning, the northern lights and the sun. The Earth itself has an electromagnetic field caused by the moving molten core, which extends outwards and interacts with solar wind from the sun. *Eelektrosluching* is presented here as a sculpture that you listen to. The name is a portmanteau of 'eel' and 'elektrosluching', the latter a term coined by Jonáš Gruska (I believe) that roughly means 'electric hearing'. The translucent shell of glass eels opens in half to reveal speakers that the visitor can hold up to their ear and listen to. One half plays the noisy, grainy sounds recorded from an electromagnetic microphone which captures and converts changes in the electromagnetic field into audible sound. The other half plays sounds recorded underwater using a hydrophone. ## Creatures perceiving EMF [[1. Finding an eel pot#The eel as wanderer|Eels]] by their nature have different affordances and intelligences than humans; they're one of the many creatures that are able to sense the electromagnetic field, and actually may use this to navigate even while they're quite young. This is made more remarkable by the incredible journey they make when they're born – from the Sargasso Sea into freshwaters of North America and Europe – and later return to, decades later in their final adult forms. Radio telemetry, which uses transmitted and received radio signals, has been used to track both birds and fish for decades now. But research has also shown that some low frequencies can alter birds' ability to navigate by perceiving EMF. I think it's interesting that in this case, by 'looking' at the bird's behaviour using this system, we may also alter it.[^1] Under the water, submarine cables are one example of large-scale infrastructure that is powered with large amounts of electricity along its length, which in turn means the electromagnetic field around it is changed. Besides the production of the cables and the process of laying them and maintaining them, they change the electromagnetic environment when powered – which is always. Divers have noted that in areas where the cable is laid shallowly or ontop of the sea floor, creatures congregate around them, potentially because of this effect. In *eelektrosluching*, the eels are a symbol and reminder of the creatures that can and do sense this field that we effect. ![[../Media Sources/World_Magnetic_Field_2020.pdf.jpg]] By listening to EMF, I find my own behaviour in spaces change: I become aware of 'invisible' infrastructure like electrical outlets, or sometimes literal hidden infrastructure, like when we discovered the fusebox by listening to a raucous buzz coming from a bare wall. Taking the device out into my neighbourhood revealed another world. ## Electro-audio walk I set out on my usual route from my house to the pier and back while recording sounds using different means. I went undercover, wearing headphones and holding my device low, at least at first – but as I went I felt less self-conscious and more curious about what I was hearing. I sometimes shifted one headphone off my ear, to hear at once what was coming through the headphones and what my ears could pick up – and thought about an audio equivalent of the concept of 'two-eyed seeing'.[^2] That was the purpose of this trip: to perceive what was around me, but beyond my human senses. ![[../Media Sources/Hydro9.jpeg]] Going to the pier, I listened through an antennae I had made. It's based off of the plans for [Priezor](https://store.lom.audio/products/priezor?variant=5859618062368) (again designed by Jonáš Gruska), a microphone with ~58 windings of enamelled copper wire that lead to an audio jack. The wire acts as an inductor, picking up on fluctuations in the electromagnetic field. This plugs into an H1n Zoom audio recorder that then translates that energy into sound and amplifies it, outputting to my headphones. ![[../Media Sources/ElectroWalk_Ex.mp3|ElectroWalk_Ex]] Almost immediately I heard the buzz: our power grid, running at 120 V, 60 Hz. This is nearly constant throughout, as I realised my walking route along the roads – and even the side of the street I chose – followed power lines. The only place it dropped off (though not entirely) was crossing through Gorsebrook Park, through which the lines don't travel. This lead to an increased awareness of utility poles and the spacing between transformers or other gadgets I don't know about. At times I would come across a scooter or a box that controls the pedestrian crosswalk lights that has a more distinct ticking sound at different rates. Computer and phones also have this – I imagine it's the internal clock, an oscillator, keeping time. As I walked down the wooden steps a surprising and exciting moment of discovery: I accidentally tuned into two overlapping radio stations. The location was curiously specific – I spent some time shifting around, holding the antennae at different rotations, but it was only a couple feet cubed that picked it up. ![[../Media Sources/ElectroWalk_ex2.mp3|ElectroWalk_ex2]] Finally I reached the shoreline and walked out to the end of the dock. There, it was relatively quiet, the buzz now a low hum. I took off the headphones, relieved to be rid of the noise, and listened to the sounds of the environment: waves, wind, the occasional bird calling. The electromagnetic field was still there, just invisible, and to me, inaudible. ## The energetic environment Despite how electricity feels bound up in human advancement, the electromagnetic field has always been present – reacting and acting like waves upon the shoreline. As Douglas Kahn describes[^3], Bell invented the telephone, but it was his collaborator Watson that noticed the odd hums and crackles that would occasionally sound – fluctuations in the electromagnetic field that the long wire, acting as an antenna, picked up on. As Kahn says, ![[../references/Douglas Khan - Earth Sound, Earth Signal - 2013#^5780eb]] ![[../Media Sources/Geodynamo Between Reversals - Wikimedia Commons.gif]] <small>Computer simulation of the Earth's field in a period of normal polarity between reversals. The lines represent magnetic field lines, blue when the field points towards the center and yellow when away. Wikimedia Commons.</small> What Watson was listening to was very low frequency (VLF) radio waves produced by cosmic and planetary events. VLF is a part of the spectrum from 3 kHz to 30 kHz; the waves are huge: 3 kHz has a 100 kilometre wavelength. The earth has its own system of electromagnetic fields called the magnetosphere which interact with and respond to events: lightning strikes cause ripples that reflect around the magnetosphere to be heard as 'whistler's through radio on the other side of the planet, while also shielding the planet from solar wind from the sun, and its radiation. These events when translated into sound are called _sferics_ from 'atmospherics'. They're noteworthy moments in the ongoing natural radio of the Earth. I was introduced to VLF through a workshop by Dan Tapper who has produced work sonifying of solar data, as well as a resource on [VLF for artists](https://issuu.com/dantappersoundart/docs/vlf_guide_4_upload?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=cdn.embedly.com). He shared many points of reference, including the work of Joyce Hinterding, whom Khan also references. In [[../references/Joyce Hinterding - Aeriology|Hinterding's work 'Aeriology']], lengths of wire are strung throughout the room of the gallery, creating a massive room-scale coiled antennae. Depending upon the architecture of the room, its dimensions and windings, the antenna will pick up on different frequencies of things in the room and farther away in the atmosphere. Its scale is such that, by gathering energy from the air, it is able to power its own amplification. ![[../Media Sources/JHinterding_aeriology1.jpg]] ![[../Media Sources/JHinterding_aeriology2.jpg]] <small>Documentation of Joyce Hinterding's <i>Aeriology</i></small> In this case, radio *is* the energy, as Khan spoke of before. Speaking of Hinterding's work, he says: > By resonating with an energetic environment they demonstrate via electromagnetic induction—“the most extraordinary concept”—that “everything is active; all materials are active.” This evokes a quantum cosmos where even the most inert object is a beehive of activity but also keeps reality terrestrially tied to a ground of lived electromagnetism. At the metaphysical end, Hinterding’s approach echoes the German romanticism of Goethe: “Electricity is the pervading element that accompanies all material existence, even the atmospheric. It is to be thought of unabashedly as the soul of the world.”[^4] The electromagnetic microphone used to record my neighbourhood's energetic environment mimics the nets cast in the ocean through which waves move. Hinterding's work makes explicit the wire net that in most other telecommunication and power systems is obscured. Those lines of cables that snake through building walls, under and over the streets, crossing kilometres of land back and forth, have been built on and added to over the ages by our technological development.[^5] This 'cybercity' infrastructural layer is entangled in layers of energy and power, water and waste.[^6] This has been true in my experience of learning about [[2. Finding Cable Wharf|Cable Wharf]] in Halifax's downtown waterfront. ![[../references/Joyce Hinterding - Aeriology#^8edb01]] People have dramatically changed "the energetic environment" since Bell and Watson's time. In developing *Eelektrosluching* further, I'm interested in giving participants elektrosluching devices to navigate their surroundings independantly, through the gallery and outside it. I'm inspired by [[../references/Christina Kubisch - Electrical Walks|Christina Kubisch's Electrical Walks]] series, where participants walk through a city listening through headphones specially outfitted with electromagnetic headphones. Kubisch has explored EMF since the 1970s, and hosted these walks around the world since the early 2000s. I wonder how her recordings have changed as she visits cities over the years. I'm also inspired by Mario Santamaria's work, particularly his [[../references/Mario Santamaria - Internet Tours|Internet Tours]]. In the Internet Tour performances, Santamaria curates "a tourist route of non-tourist places" that explores sites of tele-technology infrastructure deliberately out of the way or hidden from the public's view. Santamaria's interventions challenge notions of the internet as an ephemeral network, a cloud that doesn't take up space or material, and instead literally maps out the spaces those 'bodies' move through. By noticing and listening to cell towers, we can figuratively catch transmissions in flight and trace them along their pathways between servers, then trace them to the cable receiving station and beyond. --- *Eelektrosluching* aims to make us sensitive to waves that are invisible and imperceptible to us, but part of the world and to some creature's unique affordances, like the eel's. Psychologist Anne Fernald says that "sound is kind of touch at a distance"[^7]. By extending our senses, it gives us a hint at what's happening on an elemental level in the black boxes and the many layered systems within our environments. --- To: [[Index]] - [[Artwork - Fyke Net|Artwork - Fyke Net]] - [[Artwork - Tracery|Artwork - Tracery]] - [[Artwork - Wifi Capture]] - [[Artwork - Currents|Artwork - Currents]] --- [^1]: See: [[4. Technology and media#Technology actively transforms the environment]] [^2]: [Two-eyed seeing](https://www.2eyedseeing.ca/about-5), a term introduced by Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall, refers to looking at the world through both Western and Indigenous ways of knowing. [^3]: [[../references/Douglas Khan - Earth Sound, Earth Signal - 2013#^325198|Douglas Khan - Earth Sound, Earth Signal - 2013]] [^4]: [[../references/Douglas Khan - Earth Sound, Earth Signal - 2013#^c8b50f|Douglas Khan - Earth Sound, Earth Signal]] 241, qtd. in Joyce Hinterding; Goethe qtd. in Christoph Asendorf [^5]: [[../references/Shannon Mattern - Deep Time Media Infrastructure#^71bc35|Shannon Mattern - Deep Time Media Infrastructure]] [^6]: [[../references/Shannon Mattern - Deep Time Media Infrastructure#^c26fbb|Shannon Mattern - Deep Time Media Infrastructure]] [^7]: _Musical Language_. 24 Sept. 2007, https://radiolab.org/podcast/91512-musical-language. --- #weaving #copper #electromagnetic_field #translucency #perception #undersea_cable #walking #energetic_environment #Cable_Wharf #infrastructure