GHOST LOOP is an installation that gives a voice to electricity – a force THAT is essential to modern life and seems unremarkable, yet when we look closely it becomes uncanny.
Our cohabitation with electricity is uneasy. It flows through our homes, media, communications; buried in walls and the ground, or passing invisibly in the spaces between matter. It sustains life but also endangers it, its lethality held at bay through modern rituals; safety procedures and energy supply infrastructure.
Ghost Loop reimagines this force as a restless dæmon, its voice trapped on magnetic tape in an infinite tape loop. Analogue tape is composed of iron oxide – the chemical name for rust – like the ‘Witch Bottles’ of the Middle Ages. These were sealed glass bottles containing iron pins and nails, which were hidden within the walls of houses to trap evil spirits. In a similar way, an electrical main could be said to haunt the walls of our buildings.
Electricity has its own agency, its directive to return to ground. From the point of view of an electrical current, humans are simply conductive matter to acheive this goal. Ghost Loop reflects on our own invisibility to physical forces, and our impotence in the face of massively powerful forces.
Materials: Magnetic tape, electronics, speakers, mounted on wooden cabinet
Dimensions: 700mm x 700mm x 1000mm
#soundart #installation #sculpture