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A6 format postcard advertising the Disinformation concert, for experimental music promoter Lampo, Chicago, 16 April 2005. Disinformation performed with live and with pre-recorded radio (electromagnetic) noise sources, simultaneously projecting “The Air Pump” - a video made in tribute to the artwork of the same name by the 18th century painter Joseph Wright (aka Wright of Derby), and showcasing material from the “Sense Data & Perception” CD. The video featured high-voltage discharges through cold plasma vacuum tubes, and premiered at this Lampo event.

The concert was organised by Lampo proprietor Andrew Fenchel, and took place at the Pieholden Suite Sound (recording studio) in the Ukrainian Village (thanks also to Kevin Drumm, who, so rumour has it, had a hand in Disinformation being invited by Lampo). The postcard was screen-printed in thick ink on heavy card, featuring excellent Wyndham Lewis (“Blast”) style typography by renown designer Alisa Wolfson.

During this visit, Joe Banks also presented a “Rorschach Audio” lecture-demonstration at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, at the invitation of the sound artist Nicolas Collins (author of the book “Handmade Electronic Music”, who also arranged the bulk importation of hundreds of Barrel of Monkeys for Joe). Lampo Spring 2005 performers were Disinformation, Malcolm Goldstein, Alexei Borisov and the Bohman Brothers. The concert immediately preceding Disinformation at Lampo was given by the sound artist CM von Hausswolff, who also lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago... and this is particularly apposite, since the “Rorschach Audio” demonstrations expose and de-bunk the beliefs about Electronic Voice Phenomena (ghost-voice) recordings that form a central focus within the work of CM von Hausswolff.

lampo.org/archive/disinformation-joe-banks-2005/

www.pieholdensuitesound.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/pi...

Report in the Evening Standard newspaper by journalist Max Bell, published 9 October 1996, previewing the following evening’s Disobey club night at the Garage music venue in Highbury, London. Disobey was organised by Paul Smith of Blast First - the record company responsible for publishing artists like Sonic Youth, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., Suicide and Panasonic, alongside sound works by the artist Jeremy Deller, etc. The name Blast First was a direct quotation from the Vorticist magazine “Blast”, founded in 1914 by the artist Wyndham Lewis - “BLAST First (from politeness) ENGLAND”.

The Evening Standard describes Disobey as a landmark of the London club scene, name-checks notable Disobey patrons such as Jarvis Cocker, Brian Eno and Nick Cave, and Disobey performers such as Iain Sinclair, Richard James (Aphex Twin), Jake Chapman, Bill Drummond, Mark Manning, Bruce Gilbert (of the band Wire), and (on this occasion) Disinformation, but also stresses how Disobey was a no-dress-code venue, welcoming everyone.

The article also discusses how (on the following evening) “the noise will be provided by Joe Baker (sic) of Disinformation performing National Grid”, which “involves him tapping into the hum of the power network and blasting the Garage’s long suffering patrons into oblivion using Extremely Low Frequency”. Extremely Low Frequency WHAT wasn’t specified (it was Very Low Frequency radio noise)… nonetheless, especially bearing in mind that the ease of access to information that we now take for granted (ie - Google) didn’t yet exist, this article helped introduce many thousands of readers to ideas and techniques which were (at that time) considered obscure even inside the tiny micro-culture of experimental noise music.

The night in question was attended by (among others) the writer Kathy Acker and the artist CM von Hausswolff. CM von Hausswolff subsequently included (quote) “Disinformation live at Disobey” in a list of events organised by his art project KREV (list published in Immerse magazine, issue 1, page 30, 1996) despite Disinformation having NOTHING to do with KREV, and before von Hausswolff went on to exhibit very similar sound works, eg - “Domestic Grid Flux” in the “Audible Light” exhibition at Modern Art, Oxford, in 2000.

Also with regard to documenting influence, the Evening Standard has a circulation of over 800,000 copies, plus “National Grid” was also described in the MTV magazine “Blah Blah Blah”, which had a circulation of 120,000 copies (see link)…

www.flickr.com/disinfo/33111939025/

Bruce Gilbert also remixed “National Grid” recordings… twice… for the Disinformation “Antiphony” double remix CD, and exhibited his own (unrelated) sound work alongside the first “National Grid” exhibit at the Museum of Installation gallery, both in 1997…

www.flickr.com/disinfo/33284431870/

www.flickr.com/disinfo/6896902030/

www.flickr.com/disinfo/33661873685/

Page 4 and (part of) page 5 from the brochure for the TOOT (Totally Out of Tune) Festival, organised by Hull Time Based Arts, October 1999. The article describes ideas and thought-processes influencing the sonic arts project Disinformation, focussing particularly on the project’s engagement with VLF radio and electromagnetic noise. The article argues that “recordings of atmospheric electromagnetic activity - radio from outside the realm of conventional broadcast activity… can be understood as a futuristic analogue of traditional wildlife recording”, and argues that “it can be productive to look beyond the pejorative associations of the word noise… because doing so exposes listeners to phenomena of surprising complexity and importance”. Similarly, in keeping with the notion of radio art as “neurological body art”, the article further states that “radio realises unprecedented synaesthetic opportunities, expanding perceptual bandwidth, and opening afferent [neural] pathways to floods of unfamiliar impulses”.

The article discusses ideas of and research by Benoit Mandelbrot, Karl Jansky, Rudolph Arnheim, Albert Einstein, Norbert Weiner, Jean Perrin, Arno Penzias, Robert Wilson, Robert Helliwell and Heinrich Barkhausen, and describes the sound installations “Theophany” and “National Grid” by Disinformation. Anticipating the “Re-sounding” installation exhibited by Susan Hiller in Edinburgh 15 years later, the article also emphasises the cultural importance of the discovery of microwave background radiation - describing the so-called “echo” of the Big Bang as “the observational backbone of contemporary scientific cosmology”.

The brochure features an introduction written by the artist-curator David Toop, plus texts by Mike Stubbs and Gillian Dyson, and lists (on page 15) the contributing artists as Aaron Williamson, Alexi Shulgin, Ansuman Biswas, Benoit Maubrey, Caroline Bergvall, Charlemagne Palestine, Chris Gladwin, Eike, Erwin Stache, Gebhard Stengmuller, Hayley Newman, Helmut Lemke, James Bailey, Jean Toussaint, Jim Y Wood, Joe Banks, Jon Rose, Kevin Henderson, Kypros Kyprianou, Laurence Lane, Lone Twin, Mark Fell, Nigel Helyer, Paul Burwell, Rachel Baker & Heath Bunting, Peter Bosch & Simone Simons, Susan Philipsz, The User, Vicky Bennett and Kisspal Szabolcs. The festival also featured film programmes from EMARE and Film & Video Umbrella. Joe Banks was invited to exhibit in the TOOT Festival by Mike Stubbs (later director of FACT, Liverpool), and the festival was organised for Hull Time Based Arts by Mike Stubbs, Gillian Dyson, Rob Gawthrop and the HTBA team.

The brochure was produced and distributed as a special insert in Mute magazine, and was designed and printed in black and pale yellow… page 4 was designed with white text reversed-out of a faint yellow-and-black duotone, with the effect that one paragraph in particular was almost impossible to read. For this reason the colours in the scan posted here have been reversed to render the text readable (click on the image to enlarge). The design was produced by Tom McCarthy - later the author of “C” and “Satin Island” etc. Page 11 of the brochure (not shown) introduces the Disinformation sound installations on the Arctic Corsair museum ship.

Article copyright © Joe Banks 1999

A4 information sheet for the “Soundproofs” exhibition, at London’s Museum of Installation (gallery) in July 1997. “Soundproofs” featured audio installations by Bruce Gilbert (from the band Wire), Joe Banks (Disinformation), David Clegg and Javier Marchán, performances by Martin Creed and Keiko Owada, Bruce Gilbert, Joe Banks, and Hayley Newman, plus a panel discussion chaired by Robert Worby (from BBC Radio 3) and the late Paul Burwell.

The information sheet refers to installation art as “being delineated as a broad discursive field” which is “often presented with an almost exclusive reliance on the visual”. So, in this exhibition the Museum of Installation presented “a series of empty rooms in which there is nothing to see beyond the architectural fabric”. The “Soundproofs” exhibition featured “National Grid” - the electrical sound installation created by Joe Banks for the project Disinformation, and, although the sound from this installation was heard (and felt) as vibrations rising up through the floor into an empty gallery, in fact the set-up in the basement was quite photogenic (see links below).

The info sheet acknowledges “Soundproofs” as a “collaboration with David Clegg of Workfortheeyetodo”, describing how as the gallery’s “exterior skin is being refurbished” the artists were “producing a score for the architectural container”, and then describing how “by moving through the building the listener then recreates and modifies the works, fusing mnemonic triggers and fragments into a cohesive form”. “Soundproofs” took place at the same time that the Workfortheeyetodo space was exhibiting works by John Cage, Paul Burwell and Stephen Cripps.

“National Grid” was first published on LP in 1996 and first exhibited at the MOI in 1997, pre-dating works such as “Domestic Grid Flux” by CM von Hausswolff (Modern Art Oxford, 2000) and “Electrical Walks” by Christina Kubisch (Klangraum Raumklang, Köln, 2004) by 4 and 8 years respectively (and, rather strangely, Christina Kubisch often describes herself as belonging to the [quote] “first generation of sound artists”, despite her first work being published 65 years after Luigi Russolo’s famous Intonarumori, and decades after pioneering works by John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire, etc).

www.flickr.com/disinfo/33661873685/

Visual schematic for the “Soundproofs” exhibition, at the Museum of Installation (art gallery), London, July 1997. “Soundproofs” featured sonic artworks by Bruce Gilbert (from the band Wire), Joe Banks (the producer of the art project Disinformation), David Clegg and Javier Marchán, performances by Martin Creed (and his band Owada), by Bruce Gilbert, Joe Banks and Hayley Newman, and a special panel discussion chaired by Robert Worby (from BBC Radio 3) and the late artist Paul Burwell (RIP).

www.flickr.com/disinfo/33284431870/
www.flickr.com/disinfo/33661873685/

Photo of “National Grid” - the electromagnetic sound installation by the art project Disinformation, in the basement of the Museum of Installation [art gallery], London, in July 1997. The “Soundproofs” exhibition featured installations by Joe Banks, David Clegg, Bruce Gilbert (from the band Wire) and Javier Marchán, performances by Joe Banks, Martin Creed and Keiko Owada, Bruce Gilbert, and Hayley Newman, plus a panel discussion chaired by Robert Worby (from BBC Radio 3) and the late Paul Burwell. “National Grid” was sponsored by Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers (who also sponsored the Disinformation solo exhibition at Fabrica in 2001). This photo appears on page 157 of “Installation Art in the New Millennium” by MOI curators Nicolas de Oliviera, Nicola Oxley and Michael Petry, published by Thames & Hudson in 2003, and on page 25 of the magazine “Musica Falsa”, published in Paris in 1997 (photo by Edward Woodman and courtesy of the MOI). The opening event was attended by the artist Gustav Metzger, and by Mika Vainio (of the electronic music group Panasonic).

The “Installation Art in the New Millennium” book describes how “in his work for Soundproofs the British sound artist Joe Banks used the live frequency of the national electricity grid”, and how “the resulting compression of sound was amplified through a series of sensitive nodes [antennas] and produced a loud tremor, which vibrated through the building”. David Clegg claimed that vibrations from “National Grid” triggered car alarms in the street outside and caused masonry to fall from the front of the building.

The text from the original exhibition proposal reads as follows…

“This installation involves setting up a specially adapted shortwave radio to intercept the sine-wave radiated into the VLF radio band by alternating-current electrical supply, at its resonant frequency of 50Hz, interpret this signal, and amplify the results into a live acoustic mass via loudspeakers. National Grid manifests a genuine geomagnetic phenomenon – the electromagnetic signature of the built environment. National Grid is the ultimate realisation of Futurist noise mechanics – drawing not on a stylised simulation of industrial processes, as precedent dictates, but directly upon electricity itself as both a real and metaphorical source of creative energy.”

“Cette installation nécessite l’utilisation d’une radio onde-courtes conçue de manière à intercepter les ondes-sinus émises dans la bande très basse fréquence par le courant électrique alternatif fourni à sa fréquence résonnante de 50Hz, à l’interpréter, et à amplifier le résultat en une masse acoustique projetée dans des haut parleurs. National Grid met au jour un pur et simple phénomène géomagnétique - la signature électromagnétique d’une construction ou d’une bâtiment. National Grid est la réalisation ultimes des mécaniques sonores Futurist- élèves non sur la simulation stylisée d’un process industriel, comme le veut tradition, mais directement sur l’électricité elle-même en tant qu’elle est le sources la fois réelle et métaphorique de l’énergie créatrice” [translation as printed in “Musica Falsa”].

“National Grid” was first published on LP in 1996, and has been exhibited and performed nearly 40 times since…

www.flickr.com/disinfo/31910925141/

Report by journalist Craig McLean from the MTV music magazine “Blah Blah Blah”, about the live premiere of “National Grid” by Disinformation, at club Disobey, 10 October 1996 [1]. The first recorded version of “National Grid” was published on the Disinformation “Stargate” LP by the avant-garde record label Ash International (an imprint of Touch Records) in 1996 (see links). The first performance was programmed at the Disobey club night by Blast First - the record company responsible for publishing artists like Sonic Youth, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., Suicide and Panasonic, alongside audio work by the artist Jeremy Deller, etc.

“Blah Blah Blah” was produced for MTV by Ray Gun Publishing, boasting a circulation of 120,000 copies [2] and featuring (in the case of this issue) interviews with Noel Gallagher, Robert Carlyle, Kate Winslett, Snoop Dogg and Steve Buscemi etc - giving some indication of the role that Disinformation played in influencing sonic arts practice, and in promoting what were at that time still highly controversial ideas, to audiences outside the (very small) world of the underground noise music micro-culture.

“National Grid” was also described in a full page feature covering the Disobey event, which was printed in London’s Evening Standard newspaper, with a readership of over 800,000 people. In terms of public access to information about relatively obscure technical concepts (eg - about VLF radio) and cultural trends, it’s also worth pointing out that these events took place in the earliest days of the internet - the domain name for Google wasn’t even registered until Sept 1997 - with the effect that many of the informative resources we now take for granted did at that time simply not exist.

“National Grid” was originally performed and recorded using the Upper and Lower Side-Band filter on a VLF converted shortwave radio, to musically tune interference from live mains electricity. Later versions use electric guitar pedals to tune direct-line outputs from mains electrical transformers… “Heavy Metal for the 23rd century”!

Disinformation founder Joe Banks met Craig McLean at the Disobey performance, with the photographer John Horsley visiting Joe in Tooting some time later, photographing different equipment - the photo features the Low Frequency Engineering L500 VLF receiver used to record the Disinformation track “Ghost Shells”, plus in fact the National Grid PLC team rugby shirt (donated by Tony Charles) which originally inspired the title “National Grid”.

The “small club” referred to in the article was the (moderately large) upstairs space at The Garage (music venue) at London’s Highbury Corner. Far from being a properly underground event, Blast First engaged a professional PR company to (successfully) promote Disobey to the media as an amazing “in crowd” night, attended by celebrities such as Jarvis Cocker. The event sold-out, queues formed in the street outside, and celebrity photographers from Esquire magazine and Harper's Bazaar etc were surprised to have their expectations confounded by performances from Disinformation and DJ Beekeeper (Bruce Gilbert from the band Wire).

For a full list of “National Grid” performances and gallery sound installations to date please follow this link -

www.flickr.com/disinfo/31910925141/

[1] “Blah Blah Blah” issue 11, Feb 1997, page 4
[2] “Billboard”, 24 Feb 1996, page 94

www.discogs.com/Disinformation-Stargate/release/66465

A scan of the Disobey + DJ Beekeeper beermat can be found here -

weedsuptomeknees.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/disobey-beer...

Original promotional graphic for the “National Grid” performance by Disinformation, staged at the Royal College of Art, London, 5 Dec 1996. This second ever presentation of “National Grid” was performed live by sound artist Joe Banks, and organised for the RCA by Jon Wozencroft. “National Grid” was performed using a VLF converted shortwave radio, to intercept and to make audible the ambient electromagnetic waves, which are generated by live mains electricity, and which surround us, normally undetected, in the environment. The fundamental resonant frequency of mains alternating current is standardised at 50Hz, however, in performance, the output signals from the radio were tuned to different musical frequencies using the upper and lower sideband filter (effectively a kind of electronic pitch-shifter or ring-modulator) on the radio. Later versions of “National Grid” used live outputs from mains electrical transformers as the source of the 50Hz signal.

The first “National Grid” performance at club Disobey, 10 Oct 1996, received publicity in The Evening Standard newspaper, and in the MTV music magazine “Blah Blah Blah” (the documentation will be posted here in due course).

This graphic also appears on page 25 of “Noisegate” magazine, issue 5, published 1996. The magazine also features a review of a sound installation by Christina Kubisch at the Sonambiente Festival, Berlin, in 1996 (which seems to have featured amplified street sounds and construction site noise), and features an advertisement for a performance by Christina Kubisch, scheduled for the following year, to be held at the Goethe Institut in London. Nearly a decade later, Christina Kubisch presented her “Electrical Walks”, in collaboration with the Goethe Institut and South London Gallery - the latter having published a recording of “National Grid” on their “Sound Factory” CD in 1998. For more information about the earlier project please follow this link -

www.flickr.com/disinfo/31910925141/

“Pulsing sub-bass audio suggests associations with the most primal anthropomorphic element in music - the rhythms of the human heart, with foetal and infant hypnagogic sense memories, with seismic activity, the rumble of thunder (Jimi Hendrix claimed that his earliest childhood memory was of a thunderstorm) and even with war. Disinformation's National Grid is a sub-bass installation sourced either from the ambient VLF field radiated by electricity pylons and mains circuits, or directly from the output cables of mains transformers. National Grid offers live physical evidence of environmental electromagnetic pollution, a demonstration of the intrinsic musical properties of alternating current, beat-frequency effects, the architectural acoustics of its own exhibition space, a formula for the realisation and suppression of Futurist sound art, a cathartic response to the pressures of urban life, a monolithic soundtrack for the genius of electrification and for the bitter conflicts between government and organised labour for control over the nation's electrical infrastructure.” - Disinformation “Stargate” + “National Grid” LP - Ash International, Ash 3.2, copyright © 1996

“London was the capital of the electricity of the mind” - Geoffrey Grigson © 1957

Disobey, Holloway, London, 10 Oct 1996
Royal College of Art, Kensington, 5 Dec 1996
Museum of Installation, Deptford, July 1997
South London Gallery, Camberwell, 15 Aug 1998
Nuclear Warfare Command Centre, Anstruther, 25 Sept 1998
Lux Cinema, Hoxton, 9 Dec 1998
Volksbühne, Berlin, 27 June 1999
ZKM, Karlsruhe, 16 July 1999
Arctic Corsair, Hull, Oct 1999
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Jan to March 2000
Sonic Boom, Hayward Gallery, 2 June 2000
The Dom, Moscow, 26 Sept 2000
Fabrica, Brighton, Nov to Dec 2001
The Royal Institution, Mayfair, 22 May 2004
Corsica Studios, Elephant & Castle, 19 Nov 2004 *
The Guardian Science Writers Xmas Party, 13 Dec 2004 *
Hull Art Lab (Humber Street, Kingston-upon-Hull) 4 Feb 2005 *
Cargo Nightclub, Hoxton, 17 Feb 2005 *
The Foundry, Hoxton, Oct 2005
Westbourne Studios, Notting Hill, 18 Sept 2006 *
The Junction, Cambridge, 27 April 2007 *
Centre for Life, Newcastle, 5 March 2008 *
Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, NZ, Aug 2009
When the Dust Settles, Dalston Bunker, Oct 2010
Living Rooms, Auckland, NZ, April 2011
Frequency Festival, Lincoln, Oct 2011
Usurp Gallery, Harrow, 8 Nov 2011
GV Art, Marylebone, Nov to Dec 2013
Inspace, Edinburgh, 29 Nov 2013
Le Bon Accueil, Rennes, Oct to Nov 2014
The Auricle, Christchurch, NZ, Feb 2015
The Morgue, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 March 2017
Assembly of Disturbance, Shoreditch, 7 Oct 2017
Gallery 46, Whitechapel, 15 Feb 2018
Kino Siska, Ljubljana, 21 March 2018
CMK, Koper, 22 March 2018
Caponier Tunnel, Newhaven Fort, 22 Sept 2018
Antithesis, Schemata Art, Elephant & Castle, March 2022
Ealing Extranormal Volume 22, 16 Dec 2023
Farsight Collective, St. Giles, 11 + 12 Oct 2024
LungA Skólinn, Seyðisfjörður, 23-25 May 2025

* Disinformation + Strange Attractor

soundcloud.com/erratum_musical/disinformation-national-gr... -
[listen with headphones or good quality hi-fi loudspeakers]

“Pulsing sub-bass audio suggests associations with the most primal anthropomorphic element in music -- the rhythms of the human heart, with foetal and infant hypnagogic sense memories, with seismic activity, the rumble of thunder (Jimi Hendrix claimed that his earliest childhood memory was of a thunderstorm) and even with war. Disinformation's National Grid is a sub-bass installation sourced either from the ambient VLF field radiated by electricity pylons and mains circuits, or directly from the output cables of mains transformers. National Grid offers live physical evidence of environmental electromagnetic pollution, a demonstration of the intrinsic musical properties of alternating current, beat-frequency effects, the architectural acoustics of its own exhibition space, a formula for the realisation and suppression of Futurist sound art, a cathartic response to the pressures of urban life, a monolithic soundtrack for the genius of electrification and for the bitter conflicts between government and organised labour for control over the nation's electrical infrastructure.” - Disinformation “Stargate” + “National Grid” LP - Ash International, Ash 3.2, copyright © 1996

“London was the capital of the electricity of the mind” - Geoffrey Grigson © 1957

Disobey, Holloway, London, 10 Oct 1996
Royal College of Art, Kensington, 5 Dec 1996
Museum of Installation, Deptford, July 1997
South London Gallery, Camberwell, 15 Aug 1998
Nuclear Warfare Command Centre, Anstruther, 25 Sept 1998
Lux Cinema, Hoxton, 9 Dec 1998
Volksbühne, Berlin, 27 June 1999
ZKM, Karlsruhe, 16 July 1999
Arctic Corsair, Hull, Oct 1999
Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Jan to March 2000
Sonic Boom, Hayward Gallery, 2 June 2000
The Dom, Moscow, 26 Sept 2000
Fabrica, Brighton, Nov to Dec 2001
The Royal Institution, Mayfair, 22 May 2004
Corsica Studios, Elephant & Castle, 19 Nov 2004 *
The Guardian Science Writers Xmas Party, 13 Dec 2004 *
Hull Art Lab (Humber Street, Kingston-upon-Hull) 4 Feb 2005 *
Cargo Nightclub, Hoxton, 17 Feb 2005 *
The Foundry, Hoxton, Oct 2005
Westbourne Studios, Notting Hill, 18 Sept 2006 *
The Junction, Cambridge, 27 April 2007 *
Centre for Life, Newcastle, 5 March 2008 *
Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, NZ, Aug 2009
When the Dust Settles, Dalston Bunker, Oct 2010
Living Rooms, Auckland, NZ, April 2011
Frequency Festival, Lincoln, Oct 2011
Usurp Gallery, Harrow, 8 Nov 2011
GV Art, Marylebone, Nov to Dec 2013
Inspace, Edinburgh, 29 Nov 2013
Le Bon Accueil, Rennes, Oct to Nov 2014
The Auricle, Christchurch, NZ, Feb 2015
The Morgue, Chelsea College of Arts, 16 March 2017
Assembly of Disturbance, Shoreditch, 7 Oct 2017
Gallery 46, Whitechapel, 15 Feb 2018
Kino Siska, Ljubljana, 21 March 2018
CMK, Koper, 22 March 2018
Caponier Tunnel, Newhaven Fort, 22 Sept 2018
Antithesis, Schemata Art, Elephant & Castle, March 2022
Ealing Extranormal Volume 22, 16 Dec 2023
Farsight Collective, St. Giles, 11 + 12 Oct 2024
LungA Skólinn, Seyðisfjörður, 23-25 May 2025

* Disinformation + Strange Attractor

soundcloud.com/erratum_musical/disinformation-national-gr... - [listen with headphones or good quality hi-fi loudspeakers]