Within Without
An indoor/outdoor site-specific radio transmission sound work.
Made for Solar Bee Garden Tea Zen Remix at Unit Pitt
by Absolute Value of Noise © 2026

Within Without is a site-specific sound + radio installation made for "Solar Bee Garden Tea Zen Remix": an exhibition with Absolute Value of Noise and Lam Wong at Unit Pitt Gallery in the late Spring and Summer of 2026. The gallery has a small exhibition space with front facing windows on the street to the north. At the back to the south there is a large garden. Looking from the front window of the gallery (on the street), past a support pillar in the centre of the room, along the hallway to the windows of the back door, and from there through the overgrowth around the patios and out beyond to the back fence, there is a line-of-site that runs approximately 150 feet from the very front of the site to the back. Within Without travels this distance and brings the indoor and outdoor spaces together.

The piece consists of three parts: (1) an AM radio transmiter + water microphone that makes and transmits sound, (2) an AM radio receiver in the north window, (3) a solar powered receiver and speaker outdoors at the back fence.

You can listen to a short collage of sounds that stream
from the copper pot (water microphone) and are heard on the
outdoor and indoor receivers.
 

Transmitter with loop antenna around the doorway, June 2026.

AM Transmitter + Water Microphone: I walk into the gallery and I see a copper pot on a small shelf. There are wires descending to some metal boxes full of electronics that are open to the air. The boxes connect to a copper mesh loop antenna that goes up the wall and circles around a doorway.

The water microphone consists of a copper pot full of water. There is a micro-speaker underneath it that feeds sounds into the water. These sounds mix with sounds gathered from the air (noises in the gallery space) and are picked up by a small microphone that listens to the sound travelling through the water. The sounds from the microphone are then broadcast on a very low power AM radio transmitter that uses a copper "loop" antenna which encircles the doorway.

Water microphone and transmitter, June 2026.

Water microphone and transmitter, June 2026.

AM Receiver to the north in the window: Behind me is the front window. In the window is a small hand made AM receiver playing sounds into a 4 foot tall tube speaker. When I put my ear up to the tube speaker, it sounds like I am outdoors? Or maybe in an imaginary outdoor space with sound that I can't quite place. Or maybe hearing a radio transmission of the outdoors.

The indoor receiver is a handmade kit - a replica of a 2P3 transistor radio that was popular in China in the 1960s. This particular radio receiver can be tuned to work very well at the extremeties of the radio band. It picks up the sounds from the water microphone and plays them in the gallery.

Indoor receiver and tube speaker - photo by Dennis Ha, July 9, 2026.

Indoor receiver through the window, June 2026.

Solar Powered receiver and speaker outdoors at the back fence: Looking from the receiver at the front window, through the doorway with the transmitter, through the back door of the building and out to the back fence of the garden outside, I see a little gray box. Walking out to the box I realize that it is a metal pedestrian crosswalk signal box. It's making noise. The same sounds as I hear inside at the front window.

The sounds that playback on the copper-pot-water-microphone system include the sounds of little creatures (mostly toads) and sounds that have been given the same "texture" or "feel" as the little creatues (bubbing water, glissando flute tongue clicks, tones, and a few geese passing by). These sounds fit-in with the sounds created by the other solar powered audio installations in both the indoor and outdoor spaces.

Outdoor solar powered receiver on the fence, June 2026.

Outdoor receiver just before dusk, June 2026.

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