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Electromagnetic Sound Art - “National Grid” by Disinformation - 1996 to 2023

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_AP2LlN6E

“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

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

* Disinformation + Strange Attractor

Sawako

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CD :

Sawako
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Sawako Kato
1978 - 2024
RIP

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Electromagnetic Sound Art - “National Grid” by Disinformation + Strange Attractor [Joe Banks + Mark Pilkington]

Recorded live at New Corsica Studios - 19 Nov 2004

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_AP2LlN6E

“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

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

* Disinformation + Strange Attractor

Electromagnetic Sound Art - “National Grid” by Disinformation

Commissioned and exhibited by Fabrica Gallery, Nov 2001

Raw video by Barry Hale - video processing by Joe Banks

“National Grid” audio by Joe Banks - first published 1996

NB: poor audio compression

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO_AP2LlN6E

“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

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

* Disinformation + Strange Attractor

Disinformation – “Antithesis”
Virtual exhibition for Schemata Art
Hosted by New Art City + Corsica Studios
March 2022 onwards (indefinite exhibition)

Full description + user guide – rorschachaudio.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/disinformation...

3D view – newart.city/show/schemata-disinformation-antithesis

Catalogue view - newart.city/catalog/schemata-disinformation-antithesis

Curated and designed by Alice Hoffmann-Fuller, the latest exhibition in Schemata, Corsica Studios’ new experimental arts platform, takes place in a 3D digital rendering of Corsica Studios, hosted by on-line gallery platform New Art City. The “Antithesis” exhibition features brand new and archival work by the highly innovative and influential audio-kinetic art project Disinformation.

The Disinformation project’s exhibition for Schemata is in part inspired by the close proximity of Corsica Studios to the Brutalist architect Rodney Gordon’s iconic memorial to the electrical scientist Michael Faraday, installed, close to Corsica Studios, at the Elephant & Castle in 1961. The Disinformation sound artwork “National Grid” was first released on LP and performed live in 1996, and first exhibited as an art gallery sound installation in 1997. “National Grid” uses electromagnetic noise from live mains electricity to create a monolithic and immersive sound installation, which is conceived as a musical tribute to “the (creative) genius of electrification” [1]. The Michael Faraday memorial itself contains an electrical substation, which feeds high-voltage power to the London Underground; and it is consistent with the assertion that “art is not necessarily science, but science is always art” [2] that the original design for the Michael Faraday memorial envisaged this important work of public art as being a glass container (not, as it stands at present, a highly reflective steel box). On this basis, and in terms that are equally antithetical to the conventional wisdom of mainstream contemporary art, it can be argued that the true purpose of the architect’s original design was to enable members of the public to view what can be seen as the “real” work of art - meaning to view the electrical infrastructure.

[1] Hull Time Based Arts TOOT Festival Programme, Mute Magazine (special supplement) Oct 1999
[2] Joe Banks “The Rumble” (catalogue) Royal Society of Sculptors, March 2001

“Virtually all the physical phenomena we experience, such as light, chemical reactions, the properties of materials, and the transmission of signals along nerve fibres, are electrical in nature. In fact, the only non-electrical force we experience every day is the force of gravity.” – Harris Benson “University Physics” Wiley 1991

See also - www.flickr.com/disinfo/31910925141/

Advertisement printed in Art Monthly magazine (June 2000, issue 237) announcing the performance “with live mains electricity” by sonic arts project Disinformation, which was presented live at the Hayward Gallery, London, on the 2nd June 2000. Four years after the first performance of “National Grid” (at club Disobey, 1996) the Hayward Gallery performance employed three electromagnetic sources - re-tuned electrical noise from live mains transformers (“National Grid”, published 1996), shortwave radio noise from the sun (“Stargate”, also 1996), plus live radio noise from the sound and light installation “Artificial Lightning”, also by Disinformation.

The “Artificial Lightning” installation was set-up in a (large) darkened space, between the “Mantle” exhibit by Russell Mills and Ian Walton, and the “Civic Recovery Centre” by Brian Eno. The performance took place inside this space, was well advertised (in Art Monthly, Time Out and The Wire magazines) and was physically packed - so well attended that it proved impossible to fit the whole audience in. The Hayward Gallery deemed the performance to have been a success… because young people turned-up “wearing expensive trainers” (direct quote).

The Hayward Gallery’s catalogue for “Sonic Boom” documents the Disinformation artworks “National Grid”, the “Negatives of Lightning” and “The Analysis of Beauty”, and the “Sonic Boom” CDs feature a recording of “National Grid”. The catalogue also features photos of coastal air-defence Sound Mirrors, from the “Blackout” project, and a 2-page spectrogram of the extraordinarily musical swooping and swirling radio noise produced by “Artificial Lightning”. In terms of electromagnetic sound art, “National Grid” precedes works such as “Electrical Walks” by fellow “Sonic Boom” exhibitor Christina Kubisch by seven years.

The “Artificial Lightning” exhibit was described as “actively thrilling” and “admirable” by William Packer (in the Financial Times), while Sci-Fi author Jeff Noon wrote (in The Independent) that “people are fascinated by this work”. Sian Ede (of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) described the exhibit as “way and ahead the best piece in Sonic Boom”. Reviewing “Sonic Boom” for the same issue of Art Monthly (page 35), sound artist David Cunningham described the Disinformation exhibit however as “disturbing” and as featuring “aggressive oscillators” (there were no oscillators).

The “Artificial Lightning” exhibit was later re-titled “The Origin of Painting” (in homage to “The Maid of Corinth, or the Origin of Painting” by the eighteenth century painter Joseph Wright), and has since been exhibited throughout the UK, and in Holland, Belgium and Spain, more than 30 times. The “Sonic Boom” exhibition drew over 36,000 visitors - just under 700 per day. “The Origin of Painting” exhibition at Fabrica (Brighton, 2001) was attended by 9,300 people - 332 per day, which was pretty good, especially considering the huge difference is resources.

The Art Monthly advertisement also announces performances by the artist David Toop, who curated Sonic Boom in conjunction with Fiona Bradley, and by the artist Harry Bertoia. Sonic Boom exhibitors included Angela Bulloch, Paul Burwell, Disinformation, Heri Dono, Max Eastley, Brian Eno, Paulo Feliciano, Greyworld, Stephan von Huene, Ryoji Ikeda, Philip Jeck, Thomas Köner, Christina Kubisch, Chico MacMurtie, Christian Marclay, Katarina Matiasek, Russell Mills, Mariko Mori, John Oswald, Pan Sonic, Project Dark, Lee Ranaldo, Scanner, Paul Schütze, Rafael Toral and Ian Walton.

www.flickr.com/photos/disinfo/22175744070/

Special thanks to Tim Register

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