Adrian
Duration: 5.23 min

1. MP4/ipod version (320 x 240, 33.6 mb)

2. Quick time version (320 x 240, 42.8 mb)

Camilla and Håvard
Duration: 1.28 min

1. MP4/ipod version (320 x 240, 9.1 mb)

2. Quick time version (320 x 240, 8.3 mb)

Cornelia and Emma
Duration: 7.47 min

1. MP4/ipod version (320 x 240, 47.3 mb)

2. Quick time version (320 x 240, 61.2 mb)

(Caroline and Emma look at their hot spot map from yesterday)

11.00: Field trips

13.00: Revising and editing of video material in Final Cut Pro, including FC tutorial.

(Quick and dirty editing in FC)

(Video stills from yesterday’s filed trips)

15.15: Showing of edited videos to the rest of the group, as well as drop in guests.

16.00 – 17.00: Preparing for tonight’s show of work with Ivar Smedstad’s Video Art group.

21.30: Video screening of “Sniffer Sounds” at The Kro!

A very busy day. Everyone works intensely with almost no break. Really good work!

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!

This is Julie Nicolaisen, one of the workshop organisors of the Digit workshop series, testing Little Sniff  at the opening of the Digit exhibition.

Though transmitted signal strengths drop off increasingly rapidly (exponentially) from a single source, powerfully transmitted signals can be broadcasted over long distances. In and around urban areas are concentrations of powerful signal sources that produce a strong “baseline”, or ambient signal strength.

Analogue and digital signals

Analogue signals are on all the time. They convey information by modulating the amplitude or frequency, while digital signals conveys information via as a series of rapid pulse. On. Off. On. Off.
(FM stands for frequency modulation.)

1. Pinocio

(Photo: HC Gilje, Maxwell City, 2007)

Here’s Martin House and Erich Berger who put together the coil-based sniffer “Pinocio” (my name for it!) for close-up sniffing for the Maxwell City workshop I attended last year. It is also useful for sticking down holes! You need to plug the audio output via mini jack cable into the microphone input of a camera/other sound device to be able to hear the signal (it needs to be amplified). Listen via head phones from the headphone output of the camcorder.

We have one of these.

2. Little Sniff

(Photo: HC Gilje, Maxwell City, 2007)

Little Sniff can be heard without headphones. Its is an antenna-based EM sniffer that is built for this kit. It also derives from the Maxwell House workshop.

We have 2 of these.

CONSUMER SNIFFERS

3. Electrosmog “broadband” detector

Detects the pulsing emissions from wireless communications technologies (mobile phones, masts, DECT digital cordless phones, w/LAN’s, Wi-Fi, etc.)

• Frequency Range: 50 MHz to 3000 MHz
• Sensitivity: 0.01 volts per meter (V/m)
• Output: Audio Loudspeaker, Audio jack socket
• Controls: On/Off Switch, Volume

We have 1 of these

4. Zap checker enhanced

High sensitivity over a wide RF frequency range, with the ability to detect signals from wireless devices, cellular phones and covert “bugs” at more than 50+ feet, transmissions from “sealed” microwave ovens at 40+ feet, from walkie-talkies at 100+ feet, and from amateur radio transceivers at hundreds of feet.

• covers 1 MHz to 8 GHz.
• can be calibrated to detect different frequency ranges.
• needle display allows the user to view signal strength measurements
• audio output allows user to hear the difference in signal levels and distinguish between analog and digital signals.

(You will need to click the link above and read a description of how it works to find out which settings to use, and what you will hear/feel when you use them.)

We have one of these.

1. Headphones plugged into headphones input on camcorder

2. Camcorder

3. Sniffer with audio signal output to camcorder via mini jack cable

4. Mini jack cable plugged in to microphone input on camcorder

(Don’t forget to press record to capture the sound of electromagnetic Lillehammer on the mini DV tape!)

The electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is the range of all possible electromagnetic radiation. The “electromagnetic spectrum” (usually just spectrum) of an object is the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation from that object.

The electromagnetic spectrum extends from below the frequencies used for modern radio (at the long-wavelength end) through gamma radiation (at the short-wavelength end), covering wavelengths from thousands of kilometres down to a fraction the size of an atom.

[ Wikipedia. Read more here ]