I saw this short film by UK animator Tajinder Singh Dhami at the 2010 SPARK Festival in Minnesota. First on loop in one of the installation spaces, then again projected at the impromptu Love Power theater. I’d just spent the last few months experimenting with building simple induction microphones out of hard drive coils and butchered guitar pickups so this immediately caught my attention. The film is a wonderful bit of otherworldly field recording. The structure is simple – a bit like laying items down on a table, just a linear movement through a database of gorgeous EM field recordings.
Even having done a fair amount of this sort of recording myself, there was still a really nice process of revelation while watching. As each filmed space passes, suddenly it becomes obvious that the crackling symphony we’re hearing is actually being produced by the objects and devices being filmed. It’s a simple but really nice effect – and the source subjects are sometimes jaw-dropping. The elevator Dhami filmed sounds like it studied for years under Kim Cascone. It’s a nice peek into the secret lives of electronics.