The Seven Words sound art project by New Zealand artist Paul Amlehn and English musician Robert Fripp will be installed in sensory deprivation tanks in New York and London and will also be transmitted off-world, several light years into outer space.

Paul Amlehn is a multi-media artist, whose work has been exhibited throughout the world, including at the Venice Biennale. Robert Fripp is the founding member of the avant-rock ensemble King Crimson, and has collaborated with artists such as David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno.The Seven Words sound art project by New Zealand artist Paul Amlehn and English musician Robert Fripp will be installed in sensory deprivation tanks in New York and London and will also be transmitted off-world, several light years into outer space.

Paul Amlehn is a multi-media artist, whose work has been exhibited throughout the world, including at the Venice Biennale. Robert Fripp is the founding member of the avant-rock ensemble King Crimson, and has collaborated with artists such as David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno.The Seven Words sound art work was recently exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, the Olympus Art Festival in Greece, and the Yeosu Art Festival in South Korea.

It will be installed in sensory deprivation tanks in New York (at Blue Light Floatation) and London (at The Floatworks), so that the individual can experience the work free of external sensory stimuli, in a theta brain-wave state.

As an extreme counterpoint to the inward experience of the work in the isolation tanks, one of the compositions from The Seven Words will also be transmitted from Cape Canaveral, into interstellar space.

The Seven Words consists of three compositions of spoken word by Amlehn and soundscapes by Fripp:

1. Untitled / Queer Space Symmetrical
2. Kriya / At The End Of Time
3. Ophiuchus Improvisation / Queer Reflection Harmonic Minor

Fripp's soundscapes were improvised live and digitally recorded to hard disc, then edited and mixed at DGM Soundworld in England. They were then sent to the other side of the world to Amlehn who re-recorded the works to 2-inch analogue tape, adding accompanying vocals to the music. The aim of the process was to achieve a powerful synthesis of voice and soundscapes, one which functions on both conscious and unconscious levels in the audient. The resulting compositions are evocative, moving, and disquieting, giving birth to the multiple worlds that are contained within the self.

Extracts from The Seven Words can be heard at the online art journal Art Anomaly by launching the radio player at the bottom left of the page.

The Seven Words installation work has two parts:

Part 1: The Inner

The installation of The Seven Words in a sensory deprivation chamber at Blue Light Floatation in New York, and in isolation pods at The Floatworks in London. The experience of the work by participants in a sensory deprivation environment.

An isolation tank is a lightless, soundproof tank in which subjects float in salt water heated to skin temperature. They were first used by neuroscientist John C. Lilly, in 1954, to test the effects of sensory deprivation on the brain/mind. While floating the brain slows down into theta waves, the brain wave state of tranquility, creativity and very deep relaxation. Theta brain waves, measured at 4-7 Hz, is the brain state of REM sleep (dreams), hypnosis, lucid dreaming. Theta is the twilight state just before sleeping and just after waking, the border between the conscious and the subconscious world. In this womb-like environ, The Seven Words work can, all the more effectively, penetrate and be absorbed, into the consciousness of the individual.

Part 2: The Outer

The transmission of the sound composition: Ophiuchus Improvisation / Queer Reflection Harmonic Minor, by Deep Space Communications Network, 3-4 light years into space.

Deep Space Communications Network is a private organization located next to the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was formed specifically to communicate with outer-space by a group of broadcast engineers that regularly transmit from the space center. Deep Space Communications Network uses state of the art satellite broadcasting equipment with redundant high-powered klystron amplifiers connected by a traveling wave-guide to a five-meter parabolic dish antenna. The Seven Words transmission will be carried trillions of miles beyond our solar system, a humanistic gesture towards other worlds and, conceivably, civilizations as yet unknown.

Part 1 of The Seven Words installation can be experienced in New York and London from the 8th of September to the 8th of November.

Photo Credit: Parabolic Dish Antenna by Deep Space Communications Network

19/08/08