Fruiting Bodies of High-Voltage Transmission Lines
A sound work by Phillip Stearns 2010
Dimensions: Scalable 6' x 13' | Medium: Sound, Custom Electronics, Salvaged Speakers
Project Description:
8 speakers produce 8 approximate sine tones, independently fading in and out at slow but regular rates. Silence is broken by a single tone slowly growing louder. That tone is joined by others forming a chord. This chord morphs into a tonal cluster, a sonority active with overlapping beat frequencies, melting away into a suspenseful chord and then swelling again, evolving into subtle but unique sonorities, occasionally returning to silence.
Conceptual Statement: Imagining Electronic Systems as Living Organisms
The distinction between artificial and natural is contingent upon our understanding of the relationships between ecosystems, their boundaries (or lack thereof) and their points of overlap (or interrelation). The notion that nature is something distinct and separate from humans and their activities gives way to an understanding that humans and their activities are a subset of nature, inextricably intertwined, that nature is no longer something so grand as to be beyond our control or effect. Humanity and all life on this planet are products of a highly evolved and self-organized ecosystem of nested and overlapping ecological economies or networks. The products of humanity---culture, society, agricultural commodities, electronic technologies, nuclear weapons, the global markets, pollution, etc.---are products of ecological economies as well, composed of varying groups within society, their interactions with each other, and their relationship to the biosphere. It is therefore necessary to treat each new technology not only as a product of humanity but as a natural phenomenon with real impacts on the greater dynamics of local and global ecosystems---societal and environmental alike. In reality, the technological products of humanity are outgrowths of living systems; it is not too much to claim that the activities of all life---as it has been and as it continues today---are a necessary pre-condition of the present state of technology and its development. If humanity wishes to continue its current path without undermining the living foundations upon which all its achievements rest, it is necessary to shed the notion that technology is something unnatural, artificial, or synthetic. The challenge will be to re-imagine technology as a living system; to view it in the context of its supporting biosphere; to take into consideration all possible impacts on all other living systems regardless of scale.
Photo Documentation