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| Ghosts in the ether Kaspars Groševs, Artist | |
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| Robin Watkins – The Luminiferous Aether (Wiens Verlag, 2009) Nordic peoples have long told tales of the strange sounds that accompany appearances of the northern lights, tales that have been dismissed by scientists as products of overly fertile imaginations. Siberians describe this noise as ‘the rustling of silk’, to the Lapps it is reminiscent of ‘the crackling of the bones of deer while running’, but to the Inuits it is like ‘children playing football with a walrus skull’. It not hard to surmise that these tales are not without foundation, and the northern lights are indeed accompanied by sounds below the threshold of human hearing. Robin Watkins’ The Luminiferous Aether has been recorded using special devices for transforming extremely low and very low frequencies (ELF, VLF) into audible audio signals. These frequencies are found in the highest layer of the ionosphere (which is used to send radio signals), where solar wind particles come into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere to create the northern lights and other magnetic storms. This work has been assembled from audio materials recorded beyond the Arctic Circle in Alaska over a three day period, in collaboration with artist Nina Canell. So much for the practical aspects of the work. I believe it is also important to use headphones, as has been the practice during its public performances. The audio materials do bear a surprising resemblance to the crackling of deer bones, but the mysterious sounds of the northern lights are more like thumping, occasionally partnered with ghostly whistling and distant rustling. After carefully listening to the monotonous yet changeable noises, one hopes that the Earth’s natural radio frequencies may hold other secrets. In an essay accompanying the disc, Watkins puts the Earth’s electromagnetism in a broader context, examining historical studies, myths and legends and allowing for the possibility of other versions. The author places considerable importance on CEMI (Conscious Electromagnetic Information) field theory. According to this theory, the neurons of human consciousness operate in line with a magnetic model similar to the Earth’s magnetosphere. In the spirit of Alvin Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer (1965), in which the alpha waves of the composer’s brain were amplified so greatly that they could make percussion instruments play, each of us possesses a tiny brain radio. Drawing parallels between the dependence of both brainwaves and the ionosphere on solar energy, Watkins proposes an intriguing hypothesis about a collective electrical consciousness – could it be that the Earth’s electromagnetic field contains traces of the consciousness of every human being? Could it be that this all-encompassing ether is in fact life after death? Although the booklet, several dozen pages long, covers a number of aspects relating to electromagnetic theory, it is more useful for answering the question as to why an artist would travel to the Arctic Circle to pursue such a dry, scientific matter. By the way, other recordings of the northern lights by amateur radio enthusiast Stephen McGreevy, which are accompanied by childishly enthusiastic descriptions of how one sort of whistling differs from another, can also be found on the internet. The recording can be purchased at www.a-musik.com | |
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| The Ghost Orchid: An Introduction To EVP (Ash International, 2006) Although information about EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) and Konstantīns Raudive’s work can be found here and there (some time ago a book about Raudive’s life by Pēteris Zeile was published), his recordings of strange voices are not exactly broadcast on Latvian radio. This is the first time that such an extensive range of recordings has been brought together on disc. These mainly consist of experiments conducted by British EVP researcher Raymond Cass, as well as Raudive’s recordings issued on a 7” LP in 1971, which presented the opportunity to listen to the ghostly voices described by Raudive in his book Izlaušanās (‘Breakthrough’). Both at the start of the disc and between its sections covering the different types of voices (polyglot, singing and extra-terrestrial voices, as well as recordings giving answers to questions posed by Cass), Swedish artist Leif Elggren offers succinct comments on the sounds, which might otherwise seem like a mixture of some strange rituals and random noises. Cass’s meticulously arranged recordings include both extra-terrestrial messages and fragments of beautiful singing. Whispers of “spasi vas bog” (May God save you! – Russian – Ed. note) heard suddenly between the chattering of airline pilots can give you goosebumps. Raudive’s recordings are not specially separated, but they are clearly explained and translated into English by Nadia Fowler. Needless to say, all of the recordings are of poor quality, so they are each repeated three times (occasionally making us imagine a non-existent rhythm). It is sometimes hard to make out just how much imagination is needed to understand what the voices are really saying in the jumble of languages. Elggren, who gave a lecture at the kim? gallery in Riga 18 months ago, established the Royal Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vergaland (or KREV) together with Carl Michael von Hausswolf in 1992. The territory of KREV encompasses all of the world’s mental, physical and digital boundary zones. Every time you dream, travel or die, you enter this kingdom, and anyone may become a citizen of their own free will. There are currently 817 citizens in the Kingdom (www.elgaland-vargaland.org). The experiments conducted in the 1960s and 70s sound much more serious (and therefore scarier), especially where Cass attempts to contact forces from other worlds. Just as chilling is the cold, bleak voice of the narrator on Raudive’s LP, who attempts to express the EVP voices in English, German, Russian, Latvian and even Latgalian as clearly as possible. This collection of documents is a spooky testimony to experiments conducted by a small band of enthusiasts, and thereafter has acquired almost cult status. It is up to the listener to believe or not in the voices that suddenly appear on the magnetic tapes of the “researchers”, because this disc will not dispel scepticism. However, as with the Watkins recording, these voices from a “parallel world” also tell us a great deal about their interpreters. Small wonder, then, that Cass heard one of the voices describing him as a hero, destined to bring his discoveries to a wider audience. The recording can be purchased at http://touchshop.org /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis/ | |
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