|
Rain Motors: magnetic motion
An album featuring magnetic motion by Absolute Value of Noise © 2016.
This album features recordings of the magnetic radiation from various motor systems. I used my ELF preamp and a collection of different coils and antennae. Some of the motors are recorded from afar with my large bicycle wheel antenna (this is the antenna I used for Magnetic Focus); some are recorded up close using smaller wheel antennae (1 foot), and some have coils wrapped around the motors themselves.
(1) Eiki ELF (April 2015) - a modified Eiki 16mm film projector, updated with a DC brushless motor and a DC lamp. I originally recorded the "Eiki RT-0 Modernized" for a piece for Musique Concrète
goes to the Movies - a compilation released on June 20, 2015.
(2) Crystallite (April 2015) - riding/driving around town on my electric bicycle with an old 500 Watt Crystallite hub motor. This was recorded trucking up a steep hill from 8th Avenue to 11th on the Ontario Street bicycle route in Vancouver.
(3) Number 25 Bus (August 2008 / May 2015) - sitting at the back of the bus recording acceleration and deceleration. This is a diesel bus that runs past my house. The engine is at the back under the floor-boards. I imagine that the antenna is picking up the firing of the spark-plugs and whatever other electronic signals are flying about when the bus pulls away from the stop.
(4) Rain Motors (October 2015 .. had to wait for the rainy season .. too much sun this summer!) - the ELF sounds from my "rain powered" pager motor + bamboo resonator installation piece - Rain Stick. I wrapped tiny coils around a set of pager motors. Then I wired them up to my "rain power" circuits and stuck them out the window. The ELF signal is so quiet that there's a fair amount of white noise, which sounds a bit like rain.
(5) Solar Engines (January 2016 .. hanging out the window on a rare sunny day.) - a solar engine is a type of circuit that stores up little bits of energy until it has a large charge, then it releases all of its energy in a short burst - typically to spin a motor or drive some other power-hungry device. In this case I hooked up a few circuits to some DC motors and recorded the (mostly) short bursts of movement.
You can listen to this album on
Bandcamp
magnetic motion | crop circles - cover art for Rain Motors, November 2015.
A special mix of the piece was made for Radius Episode 72, April 2016. Radius is an experimental radio broadcast platform based in Chicago. They produce a monthly series of radio-art broadcasts on air and on-line. All the works are archived and are available through their website.
| 
