A Brief Introduction to Gremlins as Aesthetic Devices
Heather Contant
I always called them “gremlins” [1], those electro- without a definite center or edge” magnetic interference sounds that emerge from your speakers [7]. Gremlins become an audible
when you leave your cell phone too close to your audio work- seam in the supposedly seamless a b s t r a c t station. Any number of devices can cause gremlins: Wi-Fi, baby global communications mesh that monitors, anything that transmits and/or receives wireless data. Watson and Bell started to weave The sounds of electromagnetic Gremlins have a distinct rhythm, a language of their own---“blip when they invented the telephone. interference, or “gremlins,” ba da blip ba da blip ba da buzzzzzzz . . .” [2]. I have always result from interactions among found them intriguing and welcomed them into my acoustic objects in the 21st century’s Emergent Properties sphere of media ecology. This environment. article examines how artists use When Felix Kubin put his “Mother these sounds in their work by Telephone Connections In The Fridge” during an episode employing ecologically minded of WFMU’s Radio Boredcast, various creative practices reflective Technically, the sounds that I refer to as “gremlins” occur when gremlins emerged and listeners of the interactions that cre- a conductive material becomes an unintended transducer of ated these gremlins in the first heard the impact of everyday objects the electromagnetic activity caused by radio waves carrying place. It analyzes three creative on our experiences of communica- methods: the artist workshop, digital data. In Shintaro Miyazaki’s research about algorhythms, tion. In this improvised radio drama, recorded music and live perfor- or the audible rhythms produced by algorithmic computer Kubin called his mom on his cell mance. The conclusion offers processes, he offers an explanation of this phenomenon: an original score for group- phone and then placed “the phone improvisation with gremlins. In almost every information technological device, one can find (= my mother) in all kinds of differ- integrated circuits, microchips, or other semiconductors, which ent sonic environments” [8], such allow one to control electric potentials, and thus the flow of as the fridge, a trashcan, a pot on electrons, in a very precise way. Changes of electric potentials applied to an electro-mechanical transducer (such as a loud- the stove, etc. As his mother’s vocal speaker) produce, if they are periodical and change between qualities changed, she inadvertently described the effect of the twenty and twenty thousand times a second, hearable musical phone’s environment on the quality of the call, saying, “Felix, tones. Even short changes of electrical polarity are hearable as it’s not too clear when you talk now” [9]. Gremlins accompa- short crackles [3]. nied her requests to “please take me out” [10], as the phone Radio frequencies outside of the familiar AM and FM bands entered into new ecological relationships with the electromag- that transport wireless data can cause such fluctuations in the netic pulses of the different things it encountered. Kubin lets electrical field to occur. Natural events, e.g. a bolt of lightning us hear the “thing-power” [11], to borrow a term from Jane or the aurora borealis, can also spark such changes. In 1876, Bennett, that objects exhibit in the communications mesh. No as Thomas Watson assisted Alexander Graham Bell with the single entity, “no one materiality or type of material” [12], has invention of the telephone, he heard sounds “curious and complete control over the situation in this radio drama—not captivating enough to keep him up” [4] all night. Douglas Kahn explains that these were the sounds of nature’s elec- Fig. 1. A constructed Snuff sits next to its schematics. tromagnetic sphere transduced by a half-mile-long grounded (Photo © Jan Mun/Harvestworks) iron wire [5]. In the 21st century, however, we hardly ever hear evidence of Earth’s electromagnetic environment. Our louder and more local environment of media chatter drowns it all out. Mobile devices, network protocols, encoded messages traveling at the speed of light and human desires for information assemble into a “massive and dynamic interrelation of processes and objects, beings and things, patterns and matter” [6] that Matthew Fuller calls media ecology. Therefore, when we hear the sounds of electromagnetic interference in the voice of a gremlin, we hear the results of sentient and nonsentient be- ings interacting in “a vast sprawling mesh of interconnection
Heather Contant (researcher), 13 South Beechwood Road, Niantic, CT 06357, U.S.A. Email:
©2014 ISAST doi:10.1162/LMJ_a_00204 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 24, pp. 57–60, 2014 57
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00204 by guest on 26 September 2021 even Kubin himself, who maintains that that differs from the ‘communication and I squinted and squirmed in order he did not tamper with the gremlins in zones’ that are imposed upon us” [15]. to solder tiny components, such as the the final mix [13]. Rather, what we hear Although ecological aesethetic practices AD8313 Logarithmic Detector chip, to a is the interaction among entities that causes like Bourriaud’s have become relatively printed circuit board (Fig. 2). As the art- gremlins to emerge—and when they widespread during the 21st century, they ists explained the functionality of these do, they act as a musical track, lending have yet to become the norm in the econ- gremlin-wrangling devices, which trans- a rhythmic backdrop and emotional re- omy of cultural enterprise. Perhaps the duce the electromagnetic radio waves inforcement to the story. They seem to artists that use gremlins in an aesthetic that surround and penetrate us like “data freeze—becoming solid things in their manner are attracted to ecological art traffic” [19], they became traffickers of own right—persistent symbolic remind- practices because they genuinely wish “to information. Their discussion resonated ers of the ubiquitous ecological relation- find a more horizontal representation of with Bourriaud, who curated an exhibi- ships at play during Kubin’s conversation the relation between human and nonhu- tion called Traffic in 1996 to demonstrate with his mother—and for that matter, in man actants” [16]. Of course, it could also the ecologically minded artistic prac- all conversations with all mothers. be an unconscious coincidence on their tice of relational aesthetics [20]. Other part, since the same networks and tech- artists have dealt with gremlins in device- nologies that make it easier to implement making workshops as well: While Shin- Tactical Moves these ecological art practices also cause taro Miyazaki researched algorhythms Perhaps it should it come as no surprise, the population of gremlins to skyrocket. academically, he developed a series of then, to discover that artists who use My efforts to trace a linear history of workshops with Martin Howse [21] to gremlins in an aesthetic manner tend the use of gremlins as aesthetic devices construct a device that also used the to employ practices reflective of the eco- have proved fruitless. The “multiplicity” AD8313 chip called Detektor [22] (Fig. logical interactions that generated these and “heterogeneity” of projects that use 3). According to Caleb Kelly’s insightful sounds in the first place. Such ecologi- them indicates a rhizomatic structure at study of glitches (cousins of the gremlin) cally minded practices, whether referred their root [17], which makes it difficult in vinyl records and CDs, such devices al- to as participatory, community or socially to assemble them into a single authorita- low consumers to experience their me- engaged, implement and/or promote tive narrative. So, in lieu of one universal dia technology in unintended ways by more egalitarian modes of production history of gremlin-related artwork, I will “clearly challenging the simple one-way than currently exist in the top-down hi- offer the following three examples as a production-consumption model” [23]. erarchy of art world capitalism. Nicolas brief survey. For Claire Bishop, a workshop-based Bourriaud introduces Relational Aesthet- practice “suggests a new understanding ics with a critique of “the much vaunted of art without audiences, one in which ‘communications superhighways,’ with Artist-Led Workshops everyone is a producer” [24]. When I their toll plazas and picnic areas, [that] In February 2012 I participated in a left the Snuff workshop, I felt like I had threaten to become the only possible workshop led by artists Mario de Vega a magic lens for peering into the gremlin thoroughfare from a point to another and Víctor Mazón Gardoqui at Harvest- world, but I was a little worried because in the human world” [14]. He outlines works in New York City where I built an I had no idea how to properly wield my an alternative that “creates free areas, open-source “portable device able to am- newfound power. and time spans whose rhythm contrasts plify and demodulate frequency ranges with those structuring everyday life, and between 0.1 to 2.4 GHz” called Snuff Phase of Discovery encourages an inter-human commerce [18] (Fig. 1). My fellow participants Fellow workshop attendee Phillip Stearns put it best: “We were given this Fig. 2. A Snuff workshop participant assembles his device. (Photo © Jan Mun/Harvestworks) tool and it was up to us to figure out how to integrate it into our practices” [25] (Fig. 4). I initiated a discovery phase with my device, mixing gremlins back into the human-hearing range of environmental field recordings during a short project called “Gremlins Attack Soundscape” [26]. My results showed that locations with large amounts of human-produced sounds corresponded to a high level of gremlin activity, whereas locations with fewer human-produced sounds and more sounds of “Nature” [27] corresponded to fewer gremlins.
Recorded Music At this point, I realized that my an- thropomorphizing of the gremlins had caused them to take on a life of their own. I started to see them “as their own end product, worthy of consideration, scrutiny, and even awe” [28]. I began to care deeply about the way that the
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00204 by guest on 26 September 2021 art world appropriated these sounds, especially when it came to music. The music industry has a well-deserved repu- tation for coopting, popularizing and ultimately wearing out sounds—this has happened many times before. It came as some relief, then, to find that so far the most mainstream band to incorpo- rate gremlins into their music is a reclu- sive Scottish collaboration between two brothers, Boards of Canada. Commonly abbreviated BoC, this band continues to use analog equipment in the digital age and maintains a relatively low profile, de- spite having tracks featured in car and clothing commercials. On Record Store Day 2013, they announced their new al- bum Tomorrow’s Harvest by transmitting a convoluted series of secret messages, which were collectively decoded by their dedicated fans online. The puzzle began with the discovery of a 12-inch record at Fig. 3. A constructed Detektor. (Photo © Martin Howse) Other Music in New York City. When the lucky buyer “played the record, pretty music burst forth, followed by six num- to improvise or exchange musical notes, with points of electromagnetic interest bers, 936557, spoken in a robotic voice” continues when the results of this human as a rough guide for wandering around [29]. In the following days, passionate partnership interact with circuits that ex- and listening to gremlins freely in any Internet sleuths and BoC listeners con- ert their own power on the texture of the manner they choose. According to Bour- verted these messages into longitude audio, and concludes when the amalga- riaud, the abundance of urban wander- and latitude coordinates, plotted them mation of elements reaches the ears of ing practices conducted by ecologically on a map, connected the dots and dis- fans who gain an opportunity to interpret minded artists suggests a fascination covered the outline of a hexagon [30]. the sounds of gremlins in a new context. with “the transformation of their imme- (BoC works in a studio called Hexagon diate environment” [36]. In Kubisch’s Sun.) By the release date, BoC enthusi- work, wandering facilitates a temporary asts had solved this mystery and could Live Performance transformation of public space as partici- look forward to new mysteries in the In recorded music, listeners can learn pants slowly and deliberately promenade new album. to appreciate gremlins without fully through neighborhoods wearing their Tomorrow’s Harvest includes a song grasping their significance as indicators oversized headsets. In this practice of called “New Seeds,” described as “a sym- of media ecology. During a workshop, ecological art, “the artist sets up some pa- phony of mobile phone interference participants can gain a deeper under- rameters, starts the process, and watches (or some equivalent digital noise)” [31]. standing of gremlins’ inner workings, what happens” [37]. You can watch what It begins with the sound of gremlins, but might not contemplate their musical happens too in the video documentation whose insistent rhythms are mimicked appeal. In a live performance, though, of Electrical Walks. Attendees become the by other instruments. New musical pas- these practices intermingle and invite composers of their own unique gremlin sages organically emerge, growing from people to learn about both the grem- symphonies by moving through the ur- the sonic seeds of electromagnetic in- lin’s materiality and its aesthetic poten- ban environment, listening intently and terference. Mike Sandison, one of the tial. Christina Kubisch began noticing adjusting their relationships with the brothers in the band, explains that the gremlins when they crept into her “‘in- things that surround them. song was composed by recording instru- duction’ installations: electrical cabling ments, “feeding those sounds through fixed to walls or hung in spaces within stacks of destructive hardware and resam- which sounds or music were routed and Audience Participation pling them to make unrecognizable new received by individual hand-held remote For me, the most exciting moment in sounds” [32]. This process gives gremlins telephone amplifiers” [34]. Their tena- Kubisch’s documentation shows two the opportunity to evolve in the mind of cious interruptions piqued her interest, participants discovering their ability to the listener, who might have thought and she even created a live performance affect and appreciate the electromag- they were an audio system malfunction in which they could thrive. Electrical Walks netic sounds of their environment by or even a mistake in the recording it- turned the spotlight onto the gremlins, playing their cell phones like musical self. Upon hearing the song again and bringing the algorhythmic sounds of the instruments [38]. They seem to “call realizing that the gremlins were inten- 21st century’s communications mesh up” gremlins by raising their phones tional, the listener’s audio palate expands center stage. Attendees to these perfor- into the air like a conductor’s baton. because “through repetition we begin to mances wear a special set of headphones After my sustained inquiry into the use understand the mistake and aestheticize custom-designed by Kubisch with “coils, of gremlins as aesthetic devices, I have it” [33]. “New Seeds,” then, is the result and amplifiers and some other little se- concluded that this is the gremlins’ favor- of multiple ecological relationships. It crets” [35]. They get a map of the area, ite way to participate in the creation of starts with two people who come together usually located in a city center, marked art. They like to be summoned from the
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20. Nicolas Bourriaud, Traffic (Bordeaux: CAPC Mu- sée d’Art Contemporain 1996) unpaginated. 21. Email correspondence with Shintaro Miyazaki. 22. Shintaro Miyazaki and Martin Howse, “Detek- tors: Rhythms of Electromagnetic Emissions, their Psychogeophysics and Micrological Auscultation,” ISEA 2010, Conference Proceedings, Ruhr (2010) pp. 136–138. 23. Caleb Kelly, Cracked Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009) p. 59. 24. Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (London: Verso, 2012) p. 241. 25. Conversation with Phillip Stearns. He ended up using Snuff recordings as a score for the video documentation of his installation, Impact Study No. 1—Light Installation—Phillip Stearns—Lumen 2012, 23 June 2012. Available at
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