Our friend Amanda Dawn Christie, who at last
year's SWLfest presented her film Specters of
Shortwave and performed vocals with her theremin,
will be using the HAARP transmitter next week to
transmit art in SSTV, CW, and other modes on HF
between 2.7 - 10 MHz. (Specific times and frequencies TBA soon.)
-Ed Cummings
https://www.concordia.ca/news/stories/2019/03/21/concordia-transmission-artist-launches-a-high-frequency-project-in-alaska.html
Concordia transmission artist launches a high-frequency project in Alaska
By <https://www.concordia.ca/news/authors/meagan-boisse.html>Meagan Boisse
In the shadow of Mount Sanford, surrounded by
Alaskan wilderness, youll find the most powerful radio transmitter on earth.
With 180 antennas spread across 33 acres, the
<https://www.gi.alaska.edu/facilities/haarp>HAARP
(High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program) facility is one-of-a-kind.
It was designed by the United States military,
and transferred in 2015 to the University of
Alaska Fairbanks, to study the powerful potential
of the ionosphere an electrically charged layer of the earths atmosphere.
On this remote site, scientists use a unique tool
called the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI)
to create radio-induced aurora, also known as
airglow. But its never been used by a Canadian
artist to transmit art until now.
The IRIs man-made northern lights inspired
interdisciplinary artist
<http://www.amandadawnchristie.ca/>Amanda Dawn
Christie to create Ghosts in the Air Glow: an
upcoming transmission art project that will use
the IRI to play with the liminal boundaries of outer space.
I was so fascinated by these airglow experiments
and the relationship between the ionosphere and
radio communications I felt compelled to create
an artwork specific to the site and its history,
says Christie, assistant professor in Concordias
<https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/studio-arts.html>Department of Studio Arts.
Interdisciplinary artist Amanda Dawn Christie. | Photo by Conco
Interdisciplinary artist Amanda Dawn Christie.
| Photo by Concordia University
She will be embedding her own encoded SSTV
images, audio compositions and propagation tests
into IRI experiments from March 25 to 28.
The facility, which was used by the military,
has an air of mystery about it and has been the
subject of many conspiracy theories over the
years thats something I reflected upon when creating the piece.
Ghosts in the Air Glow will consist of an
hour-long transmission containing eight
movements, each created for a specific frequency
and intended to explore different concepts
related to radio science and the HAARP site itself.
From Arctic wolves meeting the aurora to poetic
texts written in Morse code and the NATO phonetic
alphabet, the motifs covered by this transmission
art work address issues related to military
research, surveillance, political territories,
ionospheric science, and conspiracy theories.
Embedding ghosts into the airwaves
The common thread weaving each segment together
is the idea of the ghosts, or rather the
esoteric activity that inhabits our airwaves, says Christie.
She explains that when radio was first discovered
in the 1800s, spiritualist movements of the era
believed the souls of the dead occupied the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.
Radio communications are all around; theyre an
invisible force constantly moving through us. I
liked the connection made by 19th-century
spiritualists between matter, energy and EM waves
on both a poetic and metaphorical level, Christie adds.
By embedding images and sounds into the airglow,
Im also in a way embedding my own ghosts into
the EM spectrum, an unseen yet highly active realm.
Ghosts in the Air Glow is officially the first Canadian-funded
Ghosts in the Air Glow is officially the first
Canadian-funded project to take place at HAARP. | Photo courtesy of UAF
Space: a meeting ground for art and science
The idea for the project came about when Christie
met Christopher Fallen, the chief scientist at
HAARP, at a hackers conference earlier this year.
Fallen, who is an amateur radio operator, was
intrigued by Christies proposition to use the
IRI to create site-specific transmission art.
He agreed to open the facility to her, and when
she gained backing from the
<https://canadacouncil.ca/>Canada Council for the
Arts, Ghosts in the Air Glow officially became
the first Canadian-funded project to take place at HAARP.
Art and science are often seen as separate
efforts but they actually share many of the same
inspirations and techniques. Im excited to see
HAARP, a unique scientific instrument, used for a
comparably unique artistic performance, says Fallen.
Amandas project will be a valuable contribution
to the 50-year collection of scientific work in
the field of ionosphere radio modification, and
also to the brand new collection of artistic work
using powerful high-frequency radio transmitters
and the upper atmosphere its art directed from
the ground but created in space!
Ghosts in the Air Glow will transmit one hour per
day between March 25 and 28 and will be received
and decoded by amateur radio operators with both
traditional analogue and software-defined radio
equipment across the world. However, for those
among us who arent radio experts, the
transmission will also be
<http://www.ghostsintheairglow.space/>streamed live online.
Stay tuned!
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