AMBIENT FREQUENCIES

 Ambient Frequencies

by

Antonis Antoniou
..in traveling away from itself, sound is picked up elsewhere, overheard, carried forward, or brought back, through memories and recordings, to enliven the making of social space 
(B. Labelle)
 

"Disembodied sounds reaching unsuspecting ears have the ability to affect perception in extraordinary ways. Our instinct of orientation as well as that of survival can be abruptly woken when we hear a non-recognisable sound or something that cannot be explained through familiar patterns of relationships. This triggers a kind of mechanism that almost automatically scans through all rationale in order to decode the meaning of the unspecified sound. This sound has an eerie quality, prompting the imagination to visualise potential sources, reinvent the space and activate a layer of mythical place.

The work Ambient Frequencies uses two FM transmitters to 'hack' the passers-by's car radios in order to provoke their imagination to form an Aural Aura with regards to the site they are passing by - the site that the Cyprus Cultural Centre's was going to be constructed. The two transmitters propagate signals on the same frequency, a very popular radio station's frequency. On entering the zone in which the transmitters' signal overtake the radio station’s frequency, the listener's favourite program gradually fades out and in its place he/she hears the composition broadcasted from the first transmitter. Moving ahead, the signal crossfades for the second time, now with the second transmitter, which is set about 200 meters away from the first and broadcasts another electroacoustic composition. Depending on the traffic lights and the traffic in general, a listener can spend more time in the zone of the first or the second transmitter, listening to specific sections of each piece. Thus, the final outcome depends on several parameters, and each listener perceives the work in a different way. The compositions broadcasted by the two transmitters are not abstract at all, and the connection with the site and the Cultural Centre may easily be made. Urged by their instinct (as discussed above) to give a form to this intangible energy, the listeners can be led to perceive the aural aura of the Cultural Centre. Their extended ear has now unlocked the mystery and entered the place. They can now hear the echoes of an opera singer, an orchestra tuning, the audience's cough and so many other sounds." (Antonis Antoniou)

Transmitter 1

 

Transmitter 2