V.A. – Sensing Electromagnetics

Electromagnetic fields are all around us. Electricity is a living force of many kinds of devices and electric current flowing through an object that creates an electromagnetic field around it.

Sensing Electromagnetics is a compilation of raw electromagnetic field recordings picked from submissions to an open call. Enthusiasts from all over the world have recorded electromagnetic fields using various tools such as antennas, guitar pickups, coils and telephone pickups – “sensing” devices we use every day to connect with each other and the world around us, decaying equipment, but also complex environments such as hydroelectric centre or multiple flash installations.

Listening to a field recording can give you a glimpse of a place where you have never been – by interpreting sounds through your references you are shaping in your mind an imaginary copy of the original field. Recordings of electromagnetic fields share this quality and add something more. With the freedom to re-create invisible fields, your mind is going to go all the places for which we have just very few points of reference.

On the first listen there is a striking consistency in the sound palette shared between the records, but on the second and further listens there is an amazing esthetical variety and contrast between the records presented in this compilation, as it takes you from hyperactive superhighways to delicate and detailed settings. There is no need to question if there is a ghost in the shell when you are transported to the imaginary landscape while listening to the machine from inside.