Disinformation "Ghost Shells" - Very Low Frequency natural radio recordings of hydrodynamic "whistlers", produced by doppler-shifted radio-emissions from lightning engaging with and bouncing around field lines of the earth's nocturnal magnetosphere in space (original duration 15 minutes, headphones recommended). Art / noise group Disinformation first recorded VLF whistlers near Brighton in 1995. These were released on the "Ghost Shells" 12" EP by the record company Ash International in 1996. Further recordings of the same (and many related) phenomena were released on the Disinformation "R&D" and "R&D2" (Research and Development) CDs in 1996 and 1997.
The Disinformation recordings were originally inspired by the Channel 4 TV documentary "Electric Skies", by Joe J. Carr's articles on "Radioscience Observation" in Shortwave Magazine, and then came about as an offshoot of its author's participation in the Istochnik-Ariel "virtual" laser antenna experiment on board Space Station MIR, which was organised by the American amateur science group INSPIRE (Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiments) in association with NASA and the Russian space agency IKI.
These VLF whistler recordings have been used in dozens of Disinformation concerts and DJ sets, and have been exhibited as sound installations in an Ikon Gallery UK touring exhibition called "Kiss The Sky", at Art™ (Art.TM) Inverness, in the Sonar festival at CCCB Barcelona, at Hull Time Based Arts, and most recently at Kunstverein Bregenz, Austria, etc. These recordings were also edited down to create the (0.83 second long) "Theophany" sound installation, aka "The Voice of God", a parody of the work of the same name by composer John Tavener, which has been exhibited in over a dozen galleries, including Fabrica in Brighton, Burghley House Sculpture Garden and London's Victoria and Albert Museum. "Ghost Shells" features in the forthcoming "Wet Sounds" UK touring exhibition http://www.newtoy.org/wetsounds.html
"Ghost Shells" was remixed by composer John Wall on his CD "Fractuur". "Ghost Shells" sounds appear in Disinformation remixes by musicians Mark van Hoen, RLW (Ralf Wehowsky), LOSD, Mark Van Hoen, SETI (Andrew Lagowski), Zbigniew Karkowski & Marc Behrens, Atom Heart and Kapotte Muziek, which appear on the "Antiphony" 2xCD, while remixes by Mechos and T:un[k] Systems (both pseudonyms of Peter Hodgkinson) appear on the "Al Jabr" CD compilation. Very similar ideas were "rediscovered" by The Kronos Quartet in 2002. "Ghost Shells" recently featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Broadcasting House".
The first public demonstrations of what we now refer to as VLF phenomena were presented by the Victorian electrical engineer William Preece, while the critic and art historian Douglas Kahn maintains that the first person to ever hear these phenomena was the inventor Alexander Graham Bell's assistant Thomas Watson. However, as documented in the original "Ghost Shells" sleevenotes, specific study of VLF whistlers goes back to investigations conducted during WW1 by the German physicist Heinrich Barkhausen. Special thanks to Mike Harding for publishing the original recordings.
Disinformation catalogues and CDs are available from http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/the-analysis-of-beauty/
See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g6PcLEx6bs
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Booming Sandsby Acorvettes92,799 views
sounds like atoms
MockEmpire 1 year ago
Frequency works, but to see a real haunted house go to "khowardphotoart"
khowardphotoart 2 years ago
WHAT ! no way i thought exactly the same thing! what a world huh
Timeshoes 3 years ago
sounds like birds :)
eleven12thirteen 3 years ago
Listening to this, I'm imagining myself lying on a grassy field in north-east Vermont staring up at the starry summer sky with my friend Sage beside me, contentedly exchanging sometimes giddy and sometimes awed observances of the spangled panoply before us...
edyersh 4 years ago