ARCHIVE

A sonic portrait of the world as revealed through electromagnetic phenomena. It is shaped out of the tremendous buzz, hum, and squawk of the international communications systems: commercial FM and AM, short-wave and long-wave transmissions, HAM and CB radio, public service bands, Morse code, telex and other coded signals. A frenzied noisy striving for communication that thickens into an almost tangible morass of sound, then loosens into sound patterns and light textures. The human voice and its messages seem strangely lost in this environment—distorted, barely audible—while the transmission system itself sounds vibrant and amazingly alive. Commissioned by New American Radio.