A chance meeting in Helsingör, in the shadow of Kronborg Castle, would years later see participants reciting lines from Hamlet into a sonic interface, installed where Michael Faraday worked on his large electrical experiments. Geek Physical had showcased a Faraday cage surrounding a Tesla coil, that fateful day by Øresund, immediately catching the attention of Fitzrovia Noir.
Much like the tracks left by thieving Morlocks, when they steal The Time Machine in the 1960 film version of the HG Wells classic, the feint lines of metal rails outside of our 1950s-built studio at Trinity Buoy Wharf are testament to industrial activity. Behind us lies the 1835 Electricians Shop and in front of us Faraday’s experimental lighthouse, so we’re on a ley line of innovation, giving our sonic interface perfect site-specificity, whether used as an electronic instrument or to play back recited poetry in a lightning storm or filtering ambient sound through analogue tape-loop delay by Björk’s producer, it pays homage to the Victorian spectacle, an age that saw the invention of electro-magnetism, photography radar, the dynamo, the microphone, moving pictures, the phonograph, the telephone, the Tesla coil and many other lightbulb moments.
Project Title
ELECTRICAL LANGUAGE from the series Responses to Locations in Transition
Locations
Roskilde University, 4000 Denmark
Trinity Buoy Wharf sites, London E14
Church Street, Marylebone, London NW8
Liddell House, Tynemouth, Tyneside NE30
Project Lead
Garry Hunter for Fitzrovia Noir
Production
Adam Banks at Vast Landscape
Dale Thomson at Westminster City Council
John Burton at Urban Space Management
Nikolaj Møbius at Fab Lab RUC
Vanessa Carpenter for Geek Physical
Artists
Bo Thorning
Garry Hunter
Ged Lynn
Ida Raselli
James Clark
Marta Salogni
Martin Tomlinson
Richard Fearless
Reem Kelani
Media
Upcycled particle accelerator, electronics, Faraday cage, old tyre, spare drainpipe, wire
Dates
April 2017 – ongoing
“ Now the cage – which can contain electromagnetic fields – has been set up in Church Street and recordings of the vast array of languages, dialects and accents from passers-by are being fed into it. The process creates “electrical signatures” that crackle likelightning inside the cage and can be photographed to make “kinetic light sculptures”.”
Tom Foot, Camden New Journal, March 2018