[ELECTRON] fwd: SPECTRAL ECOLOGIES : The Courier's Tragedy [Newcastle upon Tyne] & Wave-length [Dundee] - call for participation

Mon Aug 24 11:34:41 UTC 2009

Wow! pity we cant go.

Regards 
Nina Baker 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail"

Being a councillor: http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/YourCouncil/Council_Committees/Councillors/w10c2694.htm
My steampunk blog:  http://greensteampunk.blogspot.com/
Maker fair blog: http://mcmadsat.blogspot.com/

--- On Mon, 24/8/09, Simon Yuill <simon at lipparosa.org> wrote:

From: Simon Yuill <simon at lipparosa.org>
Subject: [ELECTRON] fwd: SPECTRAL ECOLOGIES : The Courier's Tragedy [Newcastle upon Tyne] & Wave-length [Dundee] - call for participation
To: "Electron Club members" <members at electronclub.org>
Date: Monday, 24 August, 2009, 12:05 PM

call for participation

~  S P E C T R A L   E C O L O G I E S  ~

The Courier's Tragedy  [Newcastle upon Tyne]
Wave-length [Dundee]

Led by Martin Howse

    A series of two 3-day investigations within complex city-wide
spectral ecologies constructed through subtle interactions between
electrical and magnetic fields (EMF) emitted by all electrical
equipment, physical materials, communication technologies (wireless
networks, mobile phone networks, RFID, television, radio, radar), power
lines, biological phenomena, and geological properties in Newcastle upon
Tyne & Dundee, UK.

***

    The Courier's Tragedy
    24, 25 & 26 September 2009 \\ Venue t.b.c [Newcastle upon Tyne ]

    Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to
end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues,
announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which
must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold; which must
always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an
overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back.
    [The Crying of Lot 49. Thomas Pynchon. 1966]

    The Courier's Tragedy is concerned with a submission of the medium
enacted by both ancient and contemporary communication systems. The
messenger is rendered redundant (literally killed) on delivery; the
message is that which really matters. The carrier can be discarded in
favour of a meaningful signal, and this is precisely what all radio
apparatus enacts, equally eliminating noise and uncertainty. Expanding a
clear concern with electromagnetic [EM] phenomena as a question of
substance, and extending the spectrum of artistic concerns to embrace
modern data space, this workshop attempts to bridge this impossible
divide between the physical (waves) and the protocol (code); asking how,
within complex spectral ecologies, it is possible to examine and embrace
both the carrier and the signal, to observe the subtle interactions and
inherent abstractions? In this context, such an examination becomes a
manner of revealing; revealing another city, revealing new modes of
communication and transmission (hidden networks).

        projected activities
        ... include making sense of a landscape from a forensics
perspective, mapping of event intensity using GPS, reconstruction of
unintentional emissions, TEMPEST, cryptography, EM psychogeographics,
data sedimentation, data visualisation and forging of underground
transmission networks.

        participant requirements
        no specific technical requirements, participants are welcome to
bring laptops, GPS, wireless cards, access points, communications
technologies, radio's, large tins and juice cartons.

        To register for the Newcastle lab please email a short statement
of interest and a biography by 3rd September '09.
        Please email-  will at ptechnic.org and include 'Howse lab' in the
subject heading.

    Wave-length
    29, 30 Sept & 1st October 2009 // Mills Observatory [Dundee]

    The development of human eyes for the reception of radio waves … is
quite inconceivable… the real difficulty lies in the much longer
wavelengths of the radio spectrum, which make the accommodation of a
directive aerial array, or antenna, a difficult problem. In fact, in any
reasonable sized animal the aerial system would probably determine the
appearance of the animal to the exclusion of all other features.
    [Radio Astronomy. F. Graham Smith. 1960]

    Wave-length proposes an open exploration of the physical
    characteristics of various wave phenomena: sound, light and radio,
with the latter two encompassed under the heading of electromagnetism
[EM]. Wavelength in all instances has a direct relationship to
oscillation and thus frequency, to resonance and to any form of change
in time and in space. In the case of radio waves, wavelength is
translated into a highly physical architecture of antennas, dishes and
arrays approximating patterns of reflection and refraction.

    Whispering galleries and sound mirrors provide inspiration in the
    audio realm. These fields can also be mapped to the microscopic,
with diminishing wavelengths, microwaves, leading into a light which
literally colours perception. Wave-length acts as a guiding principle of
scale and measure with detection or exploration determined by the
quasi-scientific expansion of sensory apparatus.

    The wave-length workshop will explore both sound and EM phenomena
from a spatial perspective: the construction of a landscape of antennas,
oscillators and detection or measurement devices using simple materials.
The workshop will close with a final performance from participants.

        projected activities
        ... include physical wave transitions, waveguide antennas,
cymatics, coils and self-made speakers, spark gap transmission, iron ore
saturation and magnetic fields in pottery, wave generation circuits,
magnetometers, electrometers, amateur radio telescopy, geophysical
archaeology.

        participant requirements
        no specific technical knowledge, participants are welcome to
bring objects (wire, tins, broken or functioning radios, cardboard,
foil, magnets, minerals) for wave-length explorations.

        To register for the Dundee lab please email a short statement of
interest and a biography by 3rd September '09.
        Please email-  exhibitions at abertay.ac.uk and include 'Howse lab'
in the subject heading.

        ***

    Martin Howse is an artist, programmer, theorist and film- maker.
Martin gained a Fine Art BA degree at Goldsmiths College, London. Martin
has performed and collaborated worldwide using custom, open software and
hardware modules for data/code processing and generation. In 2005,
Martin was part of a team awarded first prize in the VIDA 8.0 art and
artificial life competition. In 2006 he initiated xxxxx as a research
centre in Berlin, Germany, producing the acclaimed xxxxx [reader] and
maintaining a series of workshops. Martin also writes regularly for
GNU/Linux/free software publications and has participated in related
conferences and workshops. The Independent xxxxx research organisation
examines the software real, life and live coding, autodestructive
strategy and crash-falsified revelation.
    > http://1010.co.uk

            ***

            In collaboration between:
            Lindsay Brown - http://lindsaybrown.wordpress.com/
            Polytechnic: Ecologies programme. Newcastle upon Tyne -
http://ptechnic.org
            Hannah Maclure Centre, University of Abertay Cultural
Projects. Dundee - http://hannahmaclurecentre.abertay.ac.uk

            Supported by:
            Mills Observatory, Dundee - http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/mills/
            Dundee City Council
            Arts Council England- Lottery Funded

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