Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0801141519480.13042@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Anti-Crystal
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:20:11 -0500 (EST)
Anti-Crystal Crystal radio apparatus set up in Morgantown, with main inductor coil of the honeycomb type. A diode and air-capacitor were used; these three elements constituted the original radio, with the exception of the diode. The antenna was coupled with a variometer and second air-capacitor, both old. The antenna was 90 feet long-wire wrapped around two sides of a house in a hollow. Reception on 1300 from a local station was so dominant that I attempted at all costs to avoid it, bringing hum and background into play, with mixed results. The whole was fed into a sound editing program for further modification. I attempted a democratization of the airwaves, allowing the power grid and other interferences their say. The result is at http://www.alansondheim.org/mg1.mov which is a nice sound in a way, sculpted to be of sufficient interest in itself. This sculpting, like other aesthetic decisions, interfered with the original intent, but I do believe such interference constitutes the history of much recent art, if not certain schools of somewhat machinic poetics. For what is present must be presence, if presented, there must be a force behind it driving the efflorescence, there must be intention behind that force or a reading of that intention, there must be a consciousness behind that reading, there must be mind behind that consciousness, there must be confluence beyond that. What is here is confluence, for your listening and your listening pleasure.