The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

phenomenology of radio earth


phenomenology of the earth in relation to vlf and crystal - how fields
recreate an alternative 'mapping' of the planet, encased in a skein or
membrane of radiation (radiations, single or plural).

these mappings are always 'cleansed' - pure no matter what the ostensible
content of the carriers. from a technical viewpoint it's all modulation,
all encoding. extrapolate from this back to visual perception - there's
that neutrality again, as if every visible, every wound, suture, object,
process, were not only of equal value, but of null value, or rather - as
if value had no place in the world.

Buddha might have relegated suffering to the broadcast band.

induction forms intimacies with the earth; crystals are the fundamental
filters, assigning direction and flux to topological space.

earphones etc. are nothing more than mechanisms of evidence; - it's here
that the origin enters into the image - earphones establish the origin: of
the perceiver, but also of the signal content and the implications of the
location of the signal itself, if not the location itself.

loop and magnetism, but also loop and interrupter, the self-containment of
the loop. the loop virtualizes the magnetic flux transmission, inheres it.

the phenomenology of the open ground/antenna system implying segment or
vector; the earth and skies are tied to their fields, extended elsewhere
and continuously.

this tends to become too mystical, too much Heidegger who might has well
been describing early radio; the Fourfold is superhetrodyning.

>> the idea is to listen to the weakest part of the band, amplify until
something, no matter what, is heard - the potential well falls apart here
- i.e. the signal-to-noise ratio of safe information collapses. <<

think of coils and communities, coils as circumambulations surrounding
what is peripheral, perhaps preset. communities of ostensible content,
speech, interferences, adjacencies.

capacitors - inductors - proximities all: metal near metal, curled or
flattened. every capacitor induces, every inductor capacitates.

CB radio as relic community - how does this relate to the net - CB hacking
- how does this relate to codework. CB: local straggling across the earth;
your car or truck extends nine-miles in every direction.

what could constitute mineral or organic inductors, capacitors - was there
physical circuitry before humans. it's important to imagine radio as al-
ways already present, not only as background/interference, but as fore-
ground/content, intentional transmission.

http://www.asondheim.org/radioearth.gif

i don't want to harbor on this, remain in this harbor of spectral audio. i
don't want to remain here, i want to point out the myriad phenomena, their
constituents, their being-thought-through in problem worlds, or rather,
their problems in the worlds of knowing. then it's time to leave the con-
sort, or for random acts of internalization, surgical knowledge, then it's
time to leave those as well.

Slider jumping

The following is from a Koch (Hohner) slider-chromatic harmonica in the
key of C. It's difficult to play; the slide sends the Richter C up to C#
so there are still notes missing and like any other chromatic it's not
intuitive. However it allows me to play more complexly than usual and
there's an odd intellectual bent to the playing that's different from what
usually happens. to me.

http://www.asondheim.org/slider.mp3

Enjoy. no legitimation crisis or exchange value.

= Alan