Phantom Empire: NSC-68
Other Location
October 1, 2002 – November 17, 2002
Seattle-based sound artists Phantom Empire explore radio with an ear to its role as an analog medium in a ubiquitously digital culture. NSC-68 was the second in a series of soundworks created especially for the Henry Art Gallery’s elevator that reworked the sonic materials and the claustrophobic confines of traditional elevator music. Two radio transmitters broadcast sound fractals and short-wave radio signals, as well as sounds created by analog instruments, all located in the Phantom Empire laboratory and configured to play pattterns independent of human intervention. The signals were broadcast live and existed only at the moment of recording in the lab. This was not improvised sound art, yet it could not be played the same way twice. This Phantom Empire sound art project coincided with the National Association of Media Arts Centers (NAMAC) conference in Seattle, October 2-5.