Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag «PLASMA 011#1», «sonArc::ion - prologue»
Shedhalle / Exhibitions / Life Wire / Artists
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag, WARDEN-SPRITES, 2009
(Leuchtstoffröhre, Resonator, Nylonfäden, Übertragungssystem, Teslacoil, schwarzes Plexiglas, Stahlrahmen, Ultraschall-Übertrager, Labtop mit Lan) Photo: by the artist
Plasma 011 #1 und #2, from the WARDEN SPRITES cycle
2 installations with various materials, 2010/11
Plasma is a electrically conductive gas consisting of free charge carriers (ions and electrons) able to produce various light phenomena. One of the best known phenomena is aurora borealis (the northern lights) which is caused by solar wind hitting the upper strata of the earth’s atmosphere. During the 19th century, researchers started to experiment with these free energies in laboratories and tried to produce artificial auroras in glass tubes. One of these researchers was Selim Lemström from Finland, the volumes and tables of whom Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag could purchase by auction two years ago. Today, NASA and the US Navy are doing research with these waves and currents. To Sonntag, plasma simply is the central matter; not only because it is a beautiful example for Tesla energy, but because is can be considered the basis of the mass media and their luminous displays in the 20th century.
Both installations reproduce a 19th century laboratory situation using today’s means. On the one table, there is a fluorescent tube. Beneath the table top a receiver of so-called extreme-low-frequency waves has been attached. By use of a high frequency control, these waves – without a conductor – set the fluorescent tube gleaming. Similar things happen on the table in the other room. On the walls, patents and design drawing by Nicola Tesla, the important inventor and researcher at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century are juxtaposed to recently developed schemata for the alternative power supply for mobile phones, thus emphasising the actuality of Tesla’s research.
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag:PLASMA011#1 and #2, from the WARDEN-SPRITES cycle, 2010/2011 and Natural-Radio-Wave-Trape # 3, 2011 (background) (photo by the artist)
Natural-Radio-Wave-Trap #3
Installation with various materials, 2011
This multi-part constellation of objects is a monochrome white panel painting as well as an aerial with receiver. A copper wire, one kilometre long, connected to a receiver allows for the detection of very low frequency waves up to 32 kilometers long; by means of a horn parabolic system the frequencies are changed into sound waves in order to make them audible for us: We can listen to something some might be inclined to compare to or denote as e-smog: the shimmering of ballast, the pulses of switches or of electric motors.
These waves are mixed with and superimposed by so-called “sferics” (electromagnetic impulses occurring as a result of natural atmospheric lightning discharges), by phenomena like thunder storms, or the signals of extinct stars, auroras, or “sprites”. In short, we are listening to genuine “natural radio”.
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag: SonArc::ion - prologue (Videostill)
SonArc::ion – prologue
Video installation, video loop, 20 min (of 74 min), 2005/07
Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag’s whole SonArc-project is an investigation, by use of various formats, of the essence and the exciting history of electricity and to link them to the history of modern art and music. His work can be situated at the crossover of cultural theory, technical and scientific research, music and aesthetic minimalism, a mix between bricolage and innovative research in the collaborative laboratory, between thinking and designing, producing and performing magic. The cut-out of the longer video “SonArc::ion – prologue” shown here is the documentation material of a trans-medial chamber opera shorting 100 years of history of electricity by means of highly differing materials like sinus generators, aerials, radio devices, or frogs, and the reciting of a large variety of texts. The name of the project, “SonArc” refers to the words “sonus” (sound), “Sonntag” (the artist’s name as well as Sunday), and “arc” (arc of light). The arc of light is a plasma carrying an electric current. During the 19th century whole streets were lit by arcs. Sonntag now adds a cinematic one, by – starting out with a digital extension of Stockhausen’s serial composition “studie2” – making the arc sing at the end of the movie. In the cut-out shown here, one can see the picture of a man wearing a hat with an electrical wire. Aby Warburg took the picture in 1926, we can listen to his remarks: “The electrical wire drags over his top hat. In this coppersnake of Edison he has wrenched lightning away from nature. A rattlesnake doesn’t frighten today’s Americans. [As it frightened native Indians.] It is killed, in any case not revered as a god. It faces extinction. The lightning caught in the wire, the trapped electricity produced a culture doing away with paganism. […] Telegrams and telephones destroy the cosmos.”
link: / sonarc-ion.de