Departing from the Waiting Room of the Northern Lights 


Soundwalk Fjellheisen, Tromsø, Norway. 
20.04.24





In this solo show, I furnished the gallery like a waiting room, and composed a sound installation developed after a period of field recording and observation in Tromsø. After encountering the tourism infrastructures promising optimised views of the Northern Lights. I transformed the gallery space into a “waiting room” and composed a 30-minute sound loop using three sources: Very Low Frequency (VLF) electromagnetic recordings, ambient harmonium improvisations played during moments of waiting, and field recordings captured with a Canon microphone.
When the exhibition ended, The Waiting Room for the northern Lights departed back to Storsteinen, the site where the initial recordings and waiting had taken place


Extract from diary:

There is a strong wind. People turn their backs to it. Across the way, the sun is still up. Mountains. White snow. The wind is very strong.
I walk ahead, looking for a place to put down the antenna. There is a fold in the mountain where the wind seems slightly less fierce. I stop and wait for the others to catch up. When they arrive, I ask what they heard.
Footsteps. The wind. Footsteps. Body. The wind.
I take out the antenna and place it in the snow. The enameled copper end, soldered onto a mini jack, is plugged into the jack jack connector.
The jack jack goes into the Zoom H5. I take out the headphones and connect them to the recorder.
One by one, we take turns listening to the antenna.

Prrpripripr... Psssh... Pshhhs... Pripipripi... Pshhhshs.

Photos: Grisha Pankert



                                                                               

Stills from the soundwalk