Contact exudes a fleeting sense of mechanical hope and abstract curiosity in the communication space frame. If you grew up in the 90’s you’d definitely recognize some sounds such as beeping and chirping modems. While exploring sonic transmissions and emissions, radio, Morse code, sonar, satellite, blue tooth, and wireless sounds, Contact reminds us of the moment wide masses started entering the virtual gates. Along this traverse, Contact brings back memories of connecting to our collective consciousness.
Contact is a 21-minute track from field recording and sound artist Kate Carr—it’s an edited version of a live performance and radio broadcast at Radiophrenia Festival in Glasgow on May 15, 2019. Kate has been investigating the intersections between sound, place, and emotions both as an artist and a curator since 2010.
Contact exudes a fleeting sense of mechanical hope and abstract curiosity in the communication space frame. If you grew up in the 90’s you’d definitely recognize some sounds such as beeping and chirping modems. While exploring sonic transmissions and emissions, radio, Morse code, sonar, satellite, blue tooth, and wireless sounds, Contact reminds us of the moment wide masses started entering the virtual gates. Along this traverse, Contact brings back memories of connecting to our collective consciousness.
A place we are oblivious to in daily life, when we are asked to be silent and listen to the notes in this performance we touch upon the hypnotic sphere of human versus machine, that is to say, a form of human contact through devices. A fleeting sense of hope is in the air—of having contact, and receiving contact with another communicative form. A singular feeling between a one and a zero lies binary—voices are collected from an online call out for people to record themselves saying “dot dash zero one.”
There was a time where connection with technology was an effort put singularly in the process of waiting for contact to happen. Amidst our technologically advanced world today, having the chance to take a step back and to actually listen to the process is contemplative and might have us wonder whether those waves are making traces on any other dimension beyond our awareness. Of course, absolute silence is nowhere to be found in a connected city between means of communication or transportation, or any mechanical process for that matter. That on its own, makes it a sonic race. We can for a moment imagine an infinite horizon that connects our means of contact with the unseen ether of our bubble existence on this circular cosmic spot. Will there be a time when we start communicating freely with these sounds, or between individuals? One can only imagine.
Contact has sold out and is a very worthwhile find for anyone who purchased the performance piece in physical form, however, these sounds fluctuate right outside our sphere of existence, and all it takes is to calibrate our receptors to realize that our own sounds and messages drift into space. Contact is the perhaps the best soundtrack for this realization.
Contact is available on Flaming Pines.
