RADAR

CHRISTIAN SKJØDT HASSELSTRØM

 

”Art as radar acts as ‘an early alarm system,’ as it were, enabling us to discover social and psychic targets in lots of time to prepare to cope with them.” - Marshall McLuhan

The exhibition RADAR by Christian Skjødt Hasselstrøm explores the relationship between technology, man and his immediate surroundings. Using radar technology and sound, the interiors and exteriors of the Regelbau 411 bunkers are transformed into dynamic soundscapes and immersive environments.

Picturing radio waves travelling towards the horizon and the echo of their encounter with distant objects, the radar appears as a technological messenger of unseen phenomena. The term ‘remote sensing’ describes this detecting and monitoring of things and their physical characteristics that our own senses are unable to perceive, and which in the timeline of history and meteorology has warned us about future events: the speed and direction of missiles in war zones, a hurricane heading towards land. 

As such, the radar represents an extension of our senses, making it possible to act and interfere in otherwise unseen spaces: muted data on visual displays determine our next move. 

At the heart of the exhibition, specially developed radars are receiving information from the internal and external environment. Perceived in the bunkers as immersive soundscapes, we touch upon the buildings’ labyrinthic character; the opening and closing of the bridge; a train passing nearby. Here, the absence of any control panel dissolves man’s uncontested powers, encouraging us to be responsive to the environment in new ways.

Thus, Skjødt Hasselstrøm points to a sensuous and material presence at risk of being lost due to new and fast-growing technologies. As an echo of the past and a warning about the future, RADAR becomes a symbol of a bodily connection to the material world and the sound of the inevitable interwovenness of everything. 

RADAR consists of the two site-specific works RADAR L/410A and RADAR L/413A.

 

The exhibition is curated by Matilde Best and Simon Thykjær.

Created in collaboration with engineers, acousticians and other specialists at Bang & Olufsen, radio enthusiasts from OZ3EDR - EDR Struer and with assistence from Sound Art Lab. Realized with support from the Danish Arts Foundation and Danish Composers’ Society / KODA Culture

Special thanks to Laura Næsby, Aili Niimura, Peer K., Troels Mikkelsen, and Søren Gemmer.

RADAR L/413A

 

 

2021
MATERIALS: pulse radar, glass fiber radome, led lights, radar monitor, custom electronic circuitry, amplifiers, transmission line speaker, steel, wire.
MEASUREMENTS: site specific
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Regelbau 411. Oddesund, Thyholm. Denmark. 2021

 

RADAR L/413A explores the relationship between technology, human and our immediate surroundings. Using radar technology and sound, the exteriors of the Regelbau 411 WW2 bunker is transformed into a immersive sonic environment

On top of the WW2 bunker, a pulse radar rotates behind a large dome-shaped screen. From here, electromagnetic waves travel towards objects in the near and distant surroundings.

Entering the bunker, one hears the sound of the recording radar as low-frequency sound waves. Inside, renewned attention is drawn to our embodied senses and imagination, when decoding the sound and converting the signals into auditory signs of the world’s fluidity and change on a larger scale.

Unlike the visual decoding of physical and digital mappings, sound provides a different experience of the world as cohesive. Creating a time frame for a series of events, listening imparts a feeling of continuity and life. As a real-time sound image of the landscape outside, the waves resonate through the ceilings, floors and walls, interweaving the present moment captured by the radar with the historical architecture of the past.

A screen lights up in the dark, continuously refreshing the image of the world outside. The notion of a control room for atmospheric exploration seems to arise to the sound of those phenomena crossing the inner and outer, close and distant, visible and invisible spaces.

 

 

Photo: Studio Skjødt Hasselstrøm

RADAR L/410A

 

 

2021
MATERIALS: doppler radar, glass dome, led lights, custom electronic circuitry, subwoofer, steel, wire. (6x)
MEASUREMENTS: site specific
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Regelbau 411. Oddesund, Thyholm. Denmark. 2021 ; Semibreve Festival 2021. Salão Nobre, Theatro Circo, Braga. Portugal. 2021

 

RADAR L/410A explores the relationship between technology, human and our immediate surroundings. Using radar technology and sound, the interiors of the Regelbau 411 WW2 bunker is transformed into a immersive sonic environment.

Picturing radio waves travelling towards the horizon and the echo of their encounter with distant objects, the radar appears as a technological messenger of unseen phenomena.

The term ‘remote sensing’ describes this detecting and monitoring of things and their physical characteristics that our own senses are unable to perceive, and which in the timeline of history and meteorology has warned us about future events: the speed and direction of missiles in war zones, a hurricane heading towards land.

In this bunker, traditional radar technology is turned inside-out. The radar signal, which usually reaches for the wide expanses of sea and land, is limited to the enclosed space of the bunker. In each room, a specially designed Doppler radar converts the labyrinthine interior of the bunker directly into sound.

Through continuous rotations, the radar brings together concrete walls and moving bodies, interweaving everything present, not pointing towards the outside world, but to ourselves as divergent disturbances in space.

 

 

Photo: Studio Skjødt Hasselstrøm

 

 

 

 

RADAR L/410A at Semibreve 2021, Braga, Portugal:

Photos: Studio Skjødt Hasselstrøm