Traces of a conspiracy

Exhibition announcement:

"In an information-based age, the ability to search and organize information amounts to power. Search engines shape knowledge, modulate web traffic, and contribute to the creation of new semantics and meanings. Currently, Google's influence is unparalleled. It has expanded the way that we search and find information, and inserted itself into nearly every web-based activity.

"The selection of projects in Google Art, or How to Hack Google illuminate and critique the influence of this expanding online institution. The projects include ad hacks that attempt to foil Google's seemingly unstoppable business machinery, playful re-interpretations of search results and alterations of its geographical worldview. Together, they elevate and critique Google's logic, while recognizing its own deepening relationship with our culture, behavior and lives."

Curated by Ana Otero for Rhizome, October 2007.

Included in Google Art, or How to Hack Google is Gregory Chatonsky's Traces of a Conspiracy (2006), which "combines Google Maps Satellite Images, Flickr Photos and found text to produce a generative narrative. Through zooming, panning and flashing, the piece evokes the paranoid and breathless tone of a conspiracy theory while leading its audience through a limitless dialog picked from random text found on the internet."

Also included is Escoitar.org, "an open, collaborative project that encourages the addition of recorded soundscapes onto online maps. Enabled by a hack of the popular Google Maps program, Escoitar.org (meaning 'Listen' in Galician language) was inspired by a particular desire to preserve the acoustic patrimony of GALICIA, a region in the Northwest of Spain. Through the visual network between locations and accompanying sounds, Escoitar.org allows people to understand landscapes, not only visually as places, but also via their autochthonous sounds."

Image: still from Gregory Chatonsky's Traces of a conspiracy (2006)

The Zero Island

Via the Starkwhite Blog, we discover the Cactus Dome of Enewetak Atoll, a cracked concrete cap more than 100m across, covering a radioactive dump left after US nuclear testing in the Pacific Proving Ground. The dome fills a crater left HERE by the 'Cactus' blast, preceded by 'Ivy Mike''s world-first test of a hydrogen bomb in 1952 as part of Operation Ivy, which completely atomised the island of Elugelab, leaving a 2km-wide hole HERE.

"What you have just seen was an awesome turning point in history..."


Image: Ivy Mike makes the cover of Life, found here.

Stack

Last week Australian sound artist and writer Ros Bandt was in Auckland for a symposium on ElectroAcoustic music, held by The University of Auckland. Although we have had her book on Australian sound sculpture for a number of years, it was great to finally meet her.

After our chance encounter, she kindly left us with Stack, a CD of "original sonic explorations of a major new urban tower, an ephemeral acoustic space in the development of the City of Melbourne... Bandt brings to life the inner and outer sonic possibilities gleaned from the massive city stac, a 55-metre chimney designed to extract fumes from the new CityLink tunnel in the heart of Melbourne's underground." The resonant space recorded by Bandt was effectively lost when the tunnel was opened, silenced by traffic and the roar of extrator fans.

Many readers will recognise Stack's site as being alongside the infamous yellow peril, outside ACCA. From ABOVE, we can almost look right down the vent. STREET VIEW allows us to look back up at the exterior towering above us from the ground. And HERE you can drive right through the aforementioned tunnel. Nice!

Image: Ros Bandt records with the stack, photo by Arthur McDevitt.

Circular vibrations

Last year we briefly got curious about whether crop circles exist on google maps but only found those big irrigation machines that are particularly common in places like OKLAHOMA - fields and fields of Mondrian and Mrkusich grids. Now we find there's another kind of earth art, the ominous concentric circles of bombing ranges such as those of Nellis Airforce Base, HERE, HERE and HERE. And of course there are also more mysterious configurations, variously thought to be the work of pranksters, aliens, sound waves, or the Mowing-Devil; two near Sheffield HERE and HERE, and near Parma, Italy HERE (locations sourced from this map).

For an art theoretical consideration of this phenomenon, Emil McAvoy will be presenting a discussion of "the interconnections between crop formations and our current understandings of complex, integrated and nonlinear systems" at this weekend's SCANZ symposium at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.

Colour fields

Since an online visit to Monet's garden, we have been keeping an eye out for visible sunflower fields, blurry haystacks, poppies, or any other plantation bringing a splash of colour to the satellite landscapes. So far, although our efforts have hardly been persistent, there has been little success. However, an actual drive through the real terrain of West Auckland a few days ago, taking the scenic route home to avoid an accident on THE BRIDGE, led us to this industrial ROSE GARDEN with its softly dappled pink and blue smudges - and an excellent light-flare off a greenhouse roof. Jumping into street view, we couldn't help admiring the spectacular FUNNEL OF CLOUD caught in the sunset.

It seems to be a garden summer with the Auckland Art Gallery opening a delightfully electic (eccentric?) exhibition, The Enchanted Garden, not long after former gallery director Christopher Johnstone launched his own book on gardens in New Zealand art. Of the many delights unearthed from the collection vaults by curator Mary Kisler, there is one of the gallery's six views of MALTA's impressively terraced fortifications painted by Alberto Pulicino while still occupied by the 'Knights of Malta'.

Of particular interest in Johnstone's book is the early depiction of now long-gone homes, and their surrounding grounds, in what have mostly became dense, urban areas. Of these historic garden estates, a few survive, including Sir George Gray's mansion at KAWAU (depicted by Alfred Sharpe and Constance Cumming) and ST JOHN'S COLLEGE in Auckland (depicted by John Kinder) retains many early features. It is interesting to note that the extensive plantings Colin McCahon (and family) made and painted at their Titirangi house were probably influenced by time he spent working as a gardener at the WELLINGTON BOTANICAL GARDENS. Jumping back into STREET VIEW, we can almost replicate his works depicting the Titirangi House through the trees.

Leigh Martin, best known for abstract work, is included for his floral 'noise' paintings. Whilst studying in Glasgow, Martin is said to have spent much time in the local Botanic Gardens, including KIBBLE PALACE and particularly the NZ flora section. He also met the late Derek Jarman, whose shingle garden at PROSPECT COTTAGE near Dungeness (also home to a nuclear POWER STATION, an excellent set of sound mirrors, and is an important ecological site) is well known, and just as striking to the ear (audio here) as to the eye.

Image: One of many images of Derek Jarman's Garden available on flickr and similar websites.

Echoes from the future, mirrors from the past

Today I chanced upon this article by Joe Banks aka Disinformation about the English sound mirrors we mentioned a few months back. I like the way Banks extends the idea of sound as an inherently temporal media to describe the sound mirrors as allowing a 'glimpse' into the future. Banks goes on to compare these structures to Dani Karavan's Negev Brigade Memorial, overlooking Beersheba, Israel, which was presented in the Israeli Pavilion in the 10th Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition. Trained as a painter, Karavan also represented Israel at the 1976 Venice Biennale with his Environment for Peace installation.

Although the NEGEV MONUMENT, with its light tunnels and wind organs, is not so easy to see, many of his other permanent projects are easy to spot from satellite. Here is MA'ALOT, which runs between the Ludwig Museum and the impressive Cologne Cathedral. Here is his ESPLANADE CHARLES DE GAULLE in La Defense, Paris. And here is DORFPLATZ (Village Square) at the Credit Suisse HQ, Zurich.

Echoes from the sky

Since first seeing Disinformation's photos of them in the catalogue for David Toop's 2000 Sonic Boom exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, I've always been intrigued by the sound mirrors near Dungeness, and eager to visit if an opportunity ever arises. Meanwhile, they definitely warrant a GOOGLE VISIT. More are scattered around the South-east coast of England and were built from as early as 1914 to amplify listening ability to up to 20 miles. Intended to provide early warning of an aircraft attack, they were soon superceded by faster aircraft and radar. I see there has been talk of resurrecting these and, using new technology, building a counterpart in France - was this ever done?

Portable versions were also developed, including the fearsomely named Japanese War Tuba. There are some great images of the acoustic mirrors here, and more about sound weapons on the Stalker blog here, here and here. As Stalker notes, this kind of weaponry is still quite contemporary and rather scary. But could be fun in the hands of an artist though. I'd love to see (hear) focussed sound being projected from hot air balloons. Thanks to James Pinker, who alerted us to this latest development with rather insidious implications if put in the hands of unscrupulous marketing people. At least the crap cannon has been shown to be an urban myth!

The Sound of the Suburbs

This interesting one came over the Audio Foundation list a few days ago... The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (defra) have been recording towns and cities all over the UK to produce noise maps so you can see, and preserve, the quality of noise in your neighbourhood. The resultant maps are based entirely on the volume of roads, rail, airports and industry but, as this blogger has argued several times, the project makes the assumption that all noise annoys (apologies to Pete Shelley). Aside from the psychedelic surroundings, Buckingham Palace (see image, bottom left) is looking pretty tranquil. As noted in stalker's comments, the Schafers would be fascinated.