[Nettime-bold] Acoustic.Space.Lab Announcement + Review *Current Version*

["Derek Holzer" <derek@v2.nl>]

Nettimers,

Acoustic.Space.Lab was an international symposium organized by the RIXC New 
Media Center in Latvia last August around the topic of radio and satellite 
communications, and the possible interventions that artists and activists can 
make in these media. 35 participants from three continents gathered together 
at the site of a 32 meter dish antenna to begin what I hope will be a 
continuing exploration of the possibilities of communication and expression 
using the 'new' media of radio emmissions. Information on the symposium can 
be found at: http://acoustic.space.re-lab.net/lab

On the 28 of September, the V2 in Rotterdam will host a special edition of 
its well-known Wiretap discussion series which will focus on the 
Acoustic.Space.Lab and on various forms of radio art. A full program will be 
available on-line, and the evening will be webcasted, along with a night of 
sound performance on Sept 30. Please see: http://www.v2.nl/wiretap 
for more information.

A shortened version of the article below appears, with illustrations by Manu 
Luksch, in the September 2001 issue of The Wire magazine.

Derek Holzer

--------------

Ether Talk: At the Acoustic Space Lab symposium in Latvia, a crack squad of 
international  media artists and scientists took over a former Soviet spy 
station to tune into the music of the spheres.

by Mukul (ambientTV.net)


"It's beyond anybody's imagination to be able to climb around on a
multimillion-dollar machine like this and play with it."--Robert Adrian X

Seven years after the withdrawal of the Soviet Army, a 32m diameter 
radiotelescope in the Irbene forest near Ventspils, an oil transit port in 
western Latvia, was occupied once more--this time, by a 35-strong army 
wielding laptops, camcorders, scanners, kilometres of cable, crates full of 
jacks and plugs, and enough theory to confound the observatory physicists. 
Organised by Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, cofounders of E-Lab/RIXC (Riga 
Center of New Media Culture, http://rixc.lv), and Derek Holzer, the 
acoustic.space.lab symposium took place on August 4th­ - 12th between the 
Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center (VIRAC) and Riga. Media 
artists and activists gathered to explore the interface of art and 
communications technologies, and to launch an International Acoustic Space 
Research Programme. Participants who travelled for the opportunity to slide 
around the dish included L'audible, Radioqualia, Sara Kolster, Robert Adrian 
X, Radio 90, Siksika Media, Digibodies, Makrolab, Clausthome, rigasound.org 
and ambientTV.NET. 

In 1993, the Soviet Army withdrew from the Baltic States, revealing the
existence of an espionage centre near Ventspils used to eavesdrop on Western 
satellite communications. Of the three antennae at the site, the Soviets took 
the smallest dish, but the 16m and 32m dishes were too big to move. Under 
pressure from the international radioastronomy community, the army held off 
from blowing up RT-16 and RT-32, instead gifting them to the Latvian 
government. A handover team did, however, "prepare" the dishes, throwing 
metal debris into the mechanics, driving nails through cables, and pouring 
acid into the electronics. Thankfully, the antennae were built like ships--
having been drastically overengineered by the Soviet Navy. So, despite
only nominal support from the Latvian government--VIRAC is classed a
"Scientific Company with Limited Responsibility"--enthusiasts from various 
Latvian scientific institutes determined the properties of the antennae, 
repaired the damage, and transformed them into operational radiotelescopes. 
The larger antenna, RT-32 ("Little Star"), is remarkably precise--through all 
the manoeuverings of the 600 ton structure, the dish distorts less than 0.5mm 
from its paraboloidal shape. With the installed feed horn tuned to 11 GHz 
(2.5 cm wavelength), RT-32 has been used to detect radiation from the
planets, the moon (some due to lunarquakes), the sun and other stars, and 
extragalactic sources including possible black holes. It has also been used 
for VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry), in which widely separated 
telescopes are coupled to produce a giant antenna of a size equivalent to the 
distance between them. But lack of funds to repair leaks in the labs and 
upgrade the toilet facilities from the Soviet-era wooden hut means that RT-32 
is not overrun by astronomers--leaving it open for takeover by a bunch of 
media vagabonds. (In true festival spirit, we brought in a green portaloo).

Acoustic.space.lab set up three working groups at RT-32 under the guidance of 
Dmitrijs "Dima" Bezrukov. Dima deals with all aspects of the
telescope--electrotechnical, software, making of observations--and is also, 
if needed, guard, cook, and driver. He was trusting enough to allow us 
unlimited access, and assisted with all types of reception, but ruled out 
transmission (since no one had produced the requisite licence). RT-32 is 
mounted on a 25m concrete tower. Just under the dish is the "submarine" room, 
complete with portholes and a 15m conning tower that gives access to the dish 
surface, the feed horn at the secondary focus, and--after a shaky climb up 
the supporting lattice--the small reflector at the primary focus. Three 
groups established residency in various parts of the superstructure. Makrolab 
mounted their own L-band (1.5 GHz) feed at the secondary focus. True to 
dish's original purpose, they eavesdropped on communications satellites. 
Analogue channels on an Inmarsat yielded familial chatterings in Tamil and a 
minor drama about a stowaway, which rapidly took on bureaucratic overtones. 
In the spirit of their earlier webstreaming/feedback experiments, 
ambientTV.NET hoped to place a call and route it via one of these channels, 
intercept it and then feed it back, but logistically this proved impossible.

Fuelled by borscht and Black Balsams (the other black gold of the Baltics), 
the acoustic group scaled the dish and rigged up microphones at the primary 
and secondary foci. Dima lowered the dish to zero elevation and scanned the 
horizon. Above the wind noise, the mikes picked up rustlings from the Irbene 
forest, occasional bird cries, conversations on the ground, and a screeching 
handbrake turn. Movement of the dish also generated spectacular sinusoidal 
groans and squeaks, consonant in thirds and accompanied by excited squeals 
from the submariners.

The radioastronomy group attempted to observe Venus, Jupiter, and the Sun. 
With only a few hour's observation, it proved difficult to isolate any 
planetary signals amongst the noise, but data from the solar scans is being 
incorporated into Java applets and translated into MIDI by Mr. Snow 
(L'audible). Attempts to step down the GHz frequencies into the audible range 
yielded, predictably, white noise. But this was food enough for Clausthome, 
who spent hours manipulating the nondescript audio into warm, full industrial 
soundscapes.

Back in Riga, the material gathered and processed during the four days at the 
telescope was webcast in a 6-hr programme from the LMS Galerija with remote 
participation from Kunstradio (archived at http://acoustic.space.re-
lab.net/lab).

So, "science and art": one massive dish in hand, and we didn't cook up
anything approaching what Alvin Lucier did with a couple of tape recorders. 
There was no space for significant dialogue between scientists and artists. 
But we hope to use acoustic.space.lab as a launchpad for deeper, more 
theoretically and technically informed collaboration. The fact that much of 
what is observed is not only very far away not only in space but in time, the 
reflexive nature of VLBI measurements being used for geodesy--these are 
departure points for more specific and substantial projects. At the close of 
the symposium, VIRAC director Edgars Bervalds expressed his delight that the 
antenna had been explored in so many ways, adding that, though the antenna 
ought to be used primarily for science, "artists can use it to fill the vast 
spaces in our Universe that science cannot reach."

Recordings and theories developed from acoustic.space.lab will feature in the 
forthcoming acoustic.space reader (http://acoustic.space.re-lab.net)

Related programmes:
Sep 8, Riga: Projekt Atol present SIGNAL-SERVER!, an open­air satellite
audio performance (http://rixc.lv/01/signal-sever/)
Sep 24­-30, Rotterdam: V2 presents acoustic.space.lab workshop and wiretap 
discussion (www.v2.nl/wiretap)
Nov 18, Riga/Venstpils: "Little Star Began to Sing", a symphonic work about 
RT-32 by Michael Omer





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