Spectral Landscapes (SL)

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

SL is an artistic investigation into spectral ecologies, the omnipresent natural and human made emissions of the electro-magnetic (EM) spectrum. The focus of SL is on the both ends of the EM spectrum where anthropogenic emissions coincide with the natural. First, radioactivity with gamma radiation (30-300 Ehz) and second, very low frequency radio waves (VLF, 3-30 Khz). We can encounter both phenomena as natural within the landscape but also man made within our build infrastructure. We have gamma radiation produced by radioactive minerals decaying in the bedrock and as a product of nuclear fission in the nuclear power plants. We also have VLF produced by earth’s processes and as well by every single man made electric device. Together they constitute an invisible hybrid formed by a natural spectral landscape and anthropogenic spectres. The aim is to investigate the shape and form of those invisible shadows, how they change over time and how to find ways to experience them. The implementation is in three layers: 1) Construction of a drone which is equipped with a scintillation detector for gamma rays and a VLF receiver for the radio component 2) EM data will be gathered by scanning and mapping the air volumes above selected landscapes and architecture. 3) The production of a series of artworks with the aim to create a human/SL relationship: a large scale video/data work, public performances with on site interventions and a yet undefined work depended on the data gathered.

During the last three years, I conducted intense fieldwork in Finland, exploring sites with heightened natural radioactivity. The radioactivity originates from the decay of natural uranium and thorium mineralizations in the rock. I collect data that allow me to portray the gamma radiation fields which protrude from the radioactive base-rock as intricate but intrinsic features of the landscape. I imagine a bizarre but beautiful topography not ever seen by any human.. Unreal shapes, large bodies of gamma radiation are protruding from the landscape and fade into the sky beyond the canopy of trees and bushes. There they merge with the continuous rain of background radiation and particle showers in the earth's atmosphere. The shapes follow the features of the stone and are rooted within shallow puddles of beta and alpha particles. All together they are the product of the ever ongoing radioactive decay in the bedrock. Invisible but present, the constitution of these fields are part of the innate processes of our planet in deep time, conforming to continental drift, the biogenic accumulation of oxygen in our atmosphere, the folding of mountain ranges, and their weathering; they follow the carvings of geophysical forms which produce the features of the landscapes we observe around us. I refer to these bodies as spectral because their presence is ghostly and can only be detected via extra-sensorial means, but then they are also spectral because they are fields of light, of photons, although located in a part of the spectrum not visible to the human eye.