Spectres of Shortwave: Sine Waves and Snow Falls
HD video triptych with hexaphonic sound - 2014
Spectres of Shortwave: Sine Waves and Snow Falls
Sackville, 2014
A media based installation involving 3 flatscreen monitors and 6 speakers installed from the ceiling and the opposite wall of the corridor. Images on the monitors are of the RCI shortwave radio towers as they were being torn down in March 2014. Audio in this installation was recorded using handmade contact microphones placed on the towers in November 2013. The towers were hundreds of feet tall and vibrated very slightly in the high winds of the Tantramar marsh. The contact microphones picked up these vibrations (as if the towers themselves were guitar strings), and converted the vibrations into sound. The sounds were completely inaudible to the naked human ear, but the contact microphones made it possible to capture the vibrations and convert them into sound along with their harmonics and subharmonics. The speakers next to each monitor play recordings that were made in November 2013, of the tower that is seen falling. Towers in this installation are towers, Q, D, and O. It is as if the sounds are the lingering voices of the towers themselves – we are listening to the ghosts of the towers after they have fallen.
Spectres of Shortwave is a larger body of work that includes a feature length film as well as a variety of art installations, performances, and sound pieces, all incorporating documentation of the Radio Canada International shortwave towers. The project also involves audio interviews with local residents in three languages, recordings made with hand made contact microphones as well as the collection of artifacts gathered from the site as it was being dismantled. The images and audio are being used to create a feature length experimental documentary (funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, and Arts NB) destined for experimental and underground film festivals. The images, audio, and artifacts appear in various gallery-based installations, differentiated by their subtitles. The gallery installations have been completed before the film. The film, once completed, will be aimed at arts festivals and biennales alongside the visual art aspects of the project.