Editorial
Editorial
For this second issue of the tekhnē journal, GMEA has given carte blanche to Yann Leguay, a French artist based in Brussels, working at the intersection of sound and the plastic arts. He draws from media archeology to deconstruct technologies for sound production and reproduction in a practice that is equal parts critical and poetic. This work to advance theoretical knowledge, thinking and research through artistic practice – especially via tools used by artists – is an approach typical of those that GMEA supports and guides throughout the year in seminars, lectures, and publications.
For this issue, Yann Leguay asked Marie Lechner, an author and curator specialized in digital cultures, to join him in extending an invitation to researcher-artists with a shared interest in the materiality of media and in sound reproduction technologies, which are becoming more immediate, accessible, shareable and portable, but also massive, globalized and “dematerialized.”
Stephen Cornford, Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin share their research and reflections gleaned from digging into and scraping away at the multiple layers and interfaces that stand between the sound phenomenon and its reproduction. All three artists lend a tangible dimension to the hidden infrastructure, materiality, and policies beneath the sediments, rocks, transistors, amps and batteries on which our digital culture depends. They shine a light on accelerated obsolescence and take apart the black boxes of our computational landscapes. Hidden behind the frantic push to miniaturize and boost performance, we find added processes, complexity and opacity, requiring ever more raw materials and energy.
The invited artists are attuned to how the digitalization of our tools and techniques impacts planetary and ecological systems, to how the “cloud” is actually made of metal and ore. Despite being presented to us as a series of ones and zeros verging on the immaterial, this activity tends to use more chemical elements than any other technology in history – a link that connects the ethereal, immaculate digital world with the mining industries and rare-metal extraction, as well as human and environmental exploitation.
The issue begins with a speleological journey led by Yann Leguay, through the history of sound media and their constituent layers of material. Taking his interest in the (dys)functioning of technical objects as a starting point, he shines a light on a paradoxical dual movement: an incalculable number of interfaces are distancing us from the source of sound while simultaneously bringing us closer to the atomic structure of materials.
In their installation Derniers souffles, French artists Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin plunge listeners into the soundscape of the Anthropocene, to hear the white noise emitted by the germanium diodes and silicon transistors of obsolete electronic components. The sound is reminiscent of the sea, which could very well be the last noise that humanity hears, amidst climate disruption and sea level rise.
The invention of the bipolar junction transistor at Bell Laboratories in 1947 was the catalyst that ushered in the modern electronic age. Transistors replaced the vacuum tubes used in the first electronic circuits, which led to the first compact electronics and a spectacular leap forward in performance. That innovation paved the way for a multitude of practical applications in radio, television, computing, and more. The latest iPhones house 19 billion transistors. The phones we carry around in our pockets are 70% mineral raw materials and contain more than half of Mendeleev’s periodic table.
The two artists highlight the ambiguity of this white noise, which is also used for its soothing virtues. Listening to (white) noise to cut ourselves off from the hustle and bustle of the world around us.
“Rather than seeing the progression of media in terms of their modality of coding (analogue/digital), we can describe this same transition as primarily metallurgical: from Ferric to Lanthanide-Metalloid,” notes British artist and researcher Stephen Cornford, who studies the relationships between technologies and landscapes, between media systems and planetary systems. The starting point of Cornford’s article, “Bluetooth Extractions,” are compact Bluetooth speakers, whose portability and functionality rely on the metallurgy of their components’ rare earth elements. One element of particular importance is neodymium, 89% of which is refined in China, in part to make the most powerful magnets found today. “Music’s mobility emanates from the same magnets that transduce wind into electricity,” observes Cornford. This materiality, he notes, “imbricates the technics of portable audio in the resource race currently underway to secure the digital and energy futures of nation states,” as the construction of renewable energy infrastructure remains dependent on a surge in mining activity.
Like neodymium, lithium has played a crucial role in the development of practice that involve listening on the move. Vital to the batteries of our digital devices, the lightest of metals has made equipment more portable, with improved range. Lithium has facilitated new mobile sound practices and creations outside conventional concert venues, such as those recounted in Marie Lechner's interviews with ambling artists who design and create DIY listening systems used underground or in open fields. After about a thousand cycles, lithium-ion batteries end up in recycling centers, where they await either a costly extraction process or their final resting place in a landfill. By scavenging and reusing batteries and electronic waste, these artists are giving a new life to items that are rarely recycled, while also critically questioning their own practices.
Translated by Ethan Footlik