Michael Windle

Weltanschauungskrieg (A Space Opera) 2008
Additional sound Brian Cope
Video 23 mins excerpt

An incredible device has been developed by Dr. R. Fischl-D'Mur at the University of Historical Science in Venice. The MatrixMapper(TM) is able to scan materials by means of a unique plug-in for image manipulation systems that can translate the minute patterns embedded in materials such as plaster and mortar and convert them back to the sounds that first produced them.

Inspired by Guglielmo Marconi's belief that sound-waves never disappear - they only get quieter, Dr. Fischl-D'Mur has extrapolated data from Marconi's final research project (which was driven by a desire to "hear Jesus Christ deliver the sermon on the mount") and recovered a series of what are claimed are astonishing audio recordings from the time of the Italian Renaissance.

The content of the recordings have so far been kept secret. Delegates from the University's research labs have been in conference with government officials in Italy and America while the sound is being carefully decoded from infrasound to above 20 hertz (which can be heard). It seems wet building material from the early 16th century has been imbued with sub-sonic sound created from the massive pipes made from Murano mirrored glass prevalent in Venetian church organs of the time.

This is only the most recent scientific search for sounds from history. "MK-Liminal", a now declassified covert Psy-Ops operation run by the CIA during the cold war, attempted to develop a translation device along similar lines with limited success. This is thought to be the reason for the aforementioned American involvement. The CIA programs at one point were said to have focused on photographic images of thick impasto paintings hanging on the walls of the Kremlin.

The widely held suspicion is that American agencies heavily financed Abstract Expressionism (establishing it as the cutting-edge art form of the 1950s) to upstage the Soviets and claim the market from the Europeans with a native art form it could make use of. This theory has recently been buoyed with the discovery of systematic sound studies of Ab-Ex paintings on return from travelling exhibitions to USSR in 1961 and 1962 (they were being used as giant clandestine eavesdropping devices).

Back in Italy scientists have now discovered that those large Murano organs (funded by the Vatican in the late 15th Century) could generate considerable amounts of subsonic sound, out of normal hearing. Research has tested audiences within range of these and found they engender "intensely spiritual sensations".

MatrixMapper soundfile >
Created for Polarcap: Contemporary Art Projects >

Back >