PSI NET

Description

PSI-NET was a series of three hour long live on site recorded remote veiwing and meduimship experiments applying highly sensitive thermographic optical scanning, bio-feed back heart recording and voice recordings transmitted live locally via BBC OB microwave link.

The work was developed over a several month period and began by my gathering sources on the history of the local industrial, and ironstone mining communities from history collections and museums.

Superstitions and beliefs of mining families had migrated along with the nomadic industrial mining laborers .There were tales of witchcraft, of mythical giants and huge serpents that slept in local woods, of murders and haunted mine shafts, secret tunnels, illicit love affairs and a mysterious vision of a ghostly white lady. Beneath the traditional beacon site in the area, legend told of an invisible underground city that emanated sufficient force to stop watches and induce nausea in sensitive people. I wanted to use technology to embrace and map these narratives into the post industrial ethos of the landscape.

"so nature is not a physical place to which one can go, nor a treasure to fence or bank, nor as essence to be saved or violated. Nature is not hidden and so does not need to be unveiled. Nature is not a text to be read in the codes of mathematics and bio-medicine. It is not the "other" who offers origin, replenishment, and service. Neither mother, nurse, nor slave, nature is not matrix, resource, or tool for reproduction of man"

Extract from Donna Haraway - The Promises of Monsters

There were a few prominent sites in the landscape. One of these was Skelton Park Ironstone Mine - An arrangement of ruined buildings had been preserved over a hundred years in the landscape above the old mine workings.

The maps of the underground mining tunnels which were now disintegrated through subsidence had extended miles in all directions like roots or mutilated veins and arteries. This warren of empty space and flooded pit shafts were routes that at one time had been filled with miners all physically and psycholgically bound to working underground in darkness.

I contacted Audrey Watson, a local trance medium and spiritualist and had a number of meetings with a group of local spiritualist mediums and sensitives associated with Norton Spiritualist Church. I suggested a series of open seances at the ruined mine.

On the technical front I was also negotiating the support from the BBC Outside Broadcast Unit in linking the church and the ruin using microwave and infra red links using portable transmitters and receivers.

I was also negotiating technical support to loan an industrial optical scanning system used in precision engineering; giving highly accurate thermal measurement in real time. The camera incorporates an electro-optical scanning mechanism with a highly sensitive infrared detector and video interface giving direct readouts of images. This spectral imaging of the human body in the dark into patterns of human energy had bio-political significance to the geo-political mapping and color separation in cartographic imaging.

I described the project to the mediums as a public event to demonstrate and broadcast the process of mediumship applying a thermographic surveillance device. As spiritualists they believe in the survival of the personality after death.

We met at Skelton Park pit and Upleatham church to respond to the feelings and impressions of each place and they indicated specific positions that felt resonant to them. It was another kind of sensitive mapping. Occasionally one or all them would stop in their tracks as if they were lost or listening for something. This psychic and subjective accounting and relating to the invisible world brought with it a rich narrative account of the place and its history. These stories like the earlier oral accounts of local legends were also specific to places and people and I felt that these memorializing accounts were the means to create a living virtual museum.

We decided to use the old powerhouse building in the ruined mine as a place to create the circle. It had a solemn atmosphere and the stone floor was littered with piles of straw. There was a gaping hole in the floor revealing underground tunnels that wove downwards into the barricaded drift mine. The church was visible from one of the windows making it possible to use a microwave link. It was agreed that we would create open seance circle above the exposed drift mine workings over three nights after dark for one hour at which times we would silently meditate and respond to the spirit of the place. The only necessary props were four wooden chairs, some bottled water, a red light and candles. Powerful lights and generators were installed to illuminate the church and ruin at night.

Two tents had to be made from found materials in a field beyond the church at Capon Hall Farm - stubble field. The live video and sound broadcast was received locally on a monitors and several speakers within these make-shift tents. Both the church and pit were clearly visible in their night illumination by spectators in the field

The final form of the work was a series of three hour long live on site recorded psychic experiments, applying highly sensitive thermographic optical scanning, bio-feed back heart recording and voice recordings transmitted live locally via a microwave link. The results were recorded and kept.

"It seems that in the telepresent VR space, the marionettes we encounter might be automatic projections from our own consciousness, or they might have their centerÕs elsewhere. They might be the dead dreaming of the dead or the dead dreaming of the living.

Technical

Agema - Infrared Systems Thermovision 400 camera a commercial real-time infrared imaging system. An industrial optical scanning system used in precision engineering. giving hightly accurate thermal measurement in realtime. The camera incorporates an electro-optical scanning mechanism with a highly sensitive infrared detector and video interface giving direct readouts of images and max and min temperature using isotherms either grey scale or colour 4 AKG 451 mikes - 2 with windshields and stands 1 lapel mike and stethoscope Soundcraft 16 channel mixer with 2 outputs 5 amplifiers 5 pairs of speakers - Rogers LS35a 200Õ cabling 2 x 50watt generators 4 x methane gas powered lamps 33" Matsubishi video monitor Hi band -u matic portable VCR Technical Assistance from Caroline Rye, Patrick Bergel, Kevin Ellis - Agema - Infrared Systems, Dave Cart - BBC North