scrying workshop
Berlin 1-2, 4 July 2008 as part of Tuned City
Description:
Scrying is a technique of divination and revelation, of producing visions, perhaps of the future, through prolonged gaze at an object, usually of crystal or liquid nature. Scrying was famously practiced by the 16th century astronomer, mathematician and alchemist John Dee with the assistance of presumed impostor Edward Kelley, using a mirror of obsidian amongst other devices.
Scrying presents the third part in a series of practical workshops examining electromagnetic [EM] substance within the constructed environment. These previous workshops, Maxwell City, in Oslo and, more recently, Demons in the Aether, in Dortmund trace a clear spectrum of concerns, a novel route informed by the work of James Clerk Maxwell, with the notion of entropy and thus ecology bridging physics and information theory; from thermodynamics now into the digital domain.
Scrying thus moves from detection of a twinned EM architecture, a ghost city, through active intervention or transmission, towards an idea of making sense within the social regime of signal and noise. City-wide EM phenomena will be explored primarily from the perspective of a modulated, data space. The demons in the aether, the workshop participants, are transformed into detectors, coherers and detectives, attempting to make sense of an equally ghosted landscape composed of leaked signals and questionable [EVP/ITC] transmissions.
Across three days, the scrying workshop will explore and construct city-wide EM phenomena within the data space domain, examining techniques of digital forensics, of signal archaeology overlapping with contemporary artistic concerns. The scrying platform, an open hardware project concerned with the design and implementation of low power (enabling long-term, solar-powered urban installation) devices interfacing code and EM practice, will be used during the workshop.
Schedule:
July 1st: 12PM-7PM
Introductions to TEMPEST, artistic and scientific research of EM, EVP and associated phenomena.
Construction of simple probe devices for the recording and subsequent analysis of local EM phenomena.
City-wide derive with devices.
July 2nd: 12PM-7PM
Discussion of the previous day's research.
Practical introduction to EVP/ITC.
Introduction to the scrying platform and techniques for data space examination and mapping of intensities.
Second city derive.
July 4th: 12PM-7PM
Construction and exploration of intervention devices - low frequency magnetic fields and white noise. Transmissions within data space.
Final discussion and sketches for future projects.
Advice for participants:
Please bring headphones (with cable to plug into a stereo 3.5mm minijack/klinkenstecker) and any recording apparatus (portable laptop, hard disk recorder, minidisk or cassette). We will provide all tools, parts and (if necessary), headphones and cables. A GPS device would be nice to have, although not essential.
Further resources:
Links:
Post workshop
notes from alejo→ http://scrying.org/doku.php?id=ad_berlin:as_berlin
