Hive - FAQ
I am installing 50 radio sets inside Langham anti-aircraft gunnery training dome, tuning each of them to a different station, and leaving them to play for 24 hours.
Hive will be both a sound-wall of unrepeatable, complex harmonies and structures – reflecting the daily fluctuations of the combined mass of UK's radio output as heard in one location – and a comment on the choices we make in filtering the information that inundates us daily: what we choose to pay attention to and what we choose to ignore.
I carried out a test of this in the open air, and I was pleased with how it worked. Here's a short section I filmed before the heavens opened and I had to dismantle everything:
Hive will be both a sound-wall of unrepeatable, complex harmonies and structures – reflecting the daily fluctuations of the combined mass of UK's radio output as heard in one location – and a comment on the choices we make in filtering the information that inundates us daily: what we choose to pay attention to and what we choose to ignore.
I carried out a test of this in the open air, and I was pleased with how it worked. Here's a short section I filmed before the heavens opened and I had to dismantle everything:
I'm expecting things to sound very different in Norfolk. The Dome focusses sound a little like the Whispering Gallery, so the sound exactly opposite you sounds as though it's exactly inside your head, and moving just a few inches to the side loses that connection entirely. When I first visited the Dome I put four radios inside to see what it would be like. To me it sounded like many more sound sources - 10 or more - and the focussing effect was very pronounced, so it was easy to pick out an individual station in the hubbub. How this will work with all the radio stations available in Norfolk simultaneously will be very interesting.
Questions:
Is 50 radios enough?
I think so. My test using a decent quality scanner at this location found 46 stations on all wavebands - FM, MW, LW, SW and DAB. The number of shortwave stations will fluctuate with atmospheric conditions. In other locations there could be many more stations, and I'm interested to see how differently this piece will sound in contrasting places - in Streatham, Belfast, Detroit...
What sort of radios are you using?
Standard domestic radios bought on eBay for under £5. Ideally the radios would all be high quality and completely anonymous. This piece is not about the radios themselves, it's about what comes out of them: inundatory broadcasting and the choices we make to filter that information into something comprehensible.
Why 24 hours?
I want to find out how the piece develops over a long period of time - how different it will sound at 5pm as compared to 2am as compared to 10am - how the emphases of the stations changes as the sports news comes in, as the clubbers go out, as the religious programmes start on Sunday morning. I also think a highlight will be the top of each hour as most of the stations play their idents and then go to the news - a hopefully amazing focussing of attention - before they all return to their standard broadcasting again. A momentary contraction and then expansion back to the chaos, once an hour.
How can I hear this?
Here are details of when and where Hive is taking place. If you can't come to Norfolk yourself - and I would say this is the only way to experience the piece properly - there is a good chance I'll be able to stream audio live from the Dome as the piece progresses. I haven't personally checked the mobile internet speeds in situ but the signs look quite good, so I'm going to set up a streaming area on this site and hope the speeds will deliver. Furthermore I'll be recording a lot of the piece using a stereo mic setup attached to a 4m moving jib arm, so I'll be able to move the mics freely around the space. This audio will be used for both a film and radio incarnation of the piece, as well as hopefully being the source of the streaming.
Was it a deliberate choice to do this on Remembrance Sunday?
No, a complete coincidence. The piece will be running when the two minute silence takes place at 11am on Sunday 13th November.
Why the Dome, and what is Langham Dome?
Langham Dome is a World War Two anti-aircraft gunnery training dome. It is owned by the North Norfolk Historic Buildings Trust and looked after by the Friends Of Langham Dome, and to both organisations I offer great thanks for permitting me to make use of their remarkable building. It is in need of restoration to its original state, but has a special atmosphere which is why I am so pleased to be able to install Hive here. When in use in the war, aircraft spotting gunnery equipment was mounted in the middle of the floor of the Dome, and film of aircraft passing overhead was projected onto the ceiling above the gunnery trainee. He had to aim at these aircraft and would be marked by an observer as to how many he successfully 'shot'. There used to be many of these scattered around the country, even inflatable Domes, but now there are just six left: 3 in East Anglia, one in Shoreham, Sussex, one at Pembury in Camarthenshire and one at Limavady in Northern Ireland.