09.00: The day starts with a video interview by the Amandus film crew.
After a meet and greet session, I give a quick introduction to the workshop based on the previous posts (about page and useful stuff) on this blog. In addition, I demonstrate one way of visualising the sound that is emitted from the sniffers via software, using max/msp’s spectrogram help patch to show different ways of rendering the sound.
(I ask the group to listen to the sound of yellow!)
The group then tries out the different sniffers in the confines of the workshop room:
(Håvard’s first sniff)
(Adrian)
(Emma and Caroline)
(Camilla)
10.15: The group break up into small groups, select the detectors they want to work with, and we take a trip together to the Amandus Film Festival cinema.
Camilla and Håvard choose the Electrosmog Sniffer.
Caroline and Emma choose the Little Sniffer.
Adrian works alone with the Little Sniffer.
Inside the cinema
(Håvard films Camilla as she sniffs the Freia chocolate advertising sign in the kiosk)
(Caroline and Emma sniffing around Caroline’s contribution to the DigIt exhibition – 3 photos entitled “Alone”)
(More group sniffs around the exhibition. Unknown to me, each workshop participant has been selected to exhibit their photo and video work at the exhibition.)
11.00: After the security of being together at the cinema the small groups take off for their first trip alone around the city. Each group has a map to mark off interesting “hot spots” of elmag activity as they discover them.
It’s raining.
(Adrian makes an impro camcorder cover from a plastic bag he got from the woman who works in the kiosk.)
Spotting antennas:
(Nokia sender and reciever on top of the cinema building.)
(2 views of the Telenor sender and receiver in the centre of town)
An intervention!
(As Adrian sniffs a Nordea cash dispensing machine, a man comes up behind him. He looks a bit puzzled. Smiles, and simply says “are you finished now?”.)
12.15: We all meet back in the workshop room to discuss what has happened in the last couple of hours.
- What has been heard in relation to what has been seen.
- Very active hot spots where the source is unknown (in a kitchen centre and a park.)
- The action identifying and moving towards, and away from a source.
- Ambient baseline sounds of the city, and a huge antenna almost hidden in clouds on the mountains.
- Sniffing as an act of intervention/performance.
- How “normal” bodily movement of walking through the city changes through the act of sniffing.
- Bodies as barriers and carriers for signals.
- Mysterious black boxes that emit strong signals (especially from one wooden house – haunted, secret service or just faulty electrics?).
- Kits/DIY versus commercial detectors.
- Corporate domains – spectrum and geography.
- Possible ways of using electromagnetic waves as artistic material with an emphasis on film making (documentary, performance video, fiction and sc-fi).
And lots more ………
12.40: Each group reviews their recordings, and pick out a section to show the rest of the group tomorrow.
13.00: We discover that one of the cameras is not recognised on one of the macs we will edit material on tomorrow, and go for lunch.
14.00: I check out all the equipment with Tor and Tor (our 2 techies) and find out that 2 of the camcorders have faulty firewire ports. It would be easy just to get hold of new camcorders, but we have been given old cannon cameras whose tapes will only play back on like-minded cameras. A solution will hopefully be found for tomorrow.
It has been a great day!
