Propagation Seems Good Here Tonight

2009
Teryy Nauheim

Nauheim writes:"In "Propagation Seems Good Here Tonight”, animated drawings correspond with shortwave radio transmission recordings. Imagery shifts between illumination and dimness as if to sift through an atmosphere of random noise in the universe. This unpredictable environment, with its degrees of murk and clarity, propagates waves that bend, stretch, open, close, pack together and break apart.

My process of recording high frequency radio involves sifting through sonic muddle in the atmosphere in search of something notable, whether it be a southern Baptist sermon, an a cappella doo-wop vocal, or an Ecuadorian news report about Barak Obama. This random sampling of recordings yields abstract material for sound compositions. Propagation Seems Good Here Tonight adopts the notion of QSL’s (the Morse Code symbol “Q-S-L” for ’I acknowledge receipt.’) through its reconfiguring of scavenged ephemera into physical form.

Vector and hand drawings--of transmitters, waves, and atmospheric residue--respond algorithmically to accompanying audio; variables include sample rate, pitch, and duration. Visually these conditions affect the drawing’s line quality, softness, distribution of image, scale, and connections between points. Animated drawings and their corresponding sounds describe an imagined geographic space where the balance between the sound’s physicality and content reveals relationships among concepts of transmission, memory, and materiality."