THRESHOLD RECEIVER
A radiophonic listening and building workshop with Wouter Jaspers
The city is full of signals we were never meant to hear. Power lines, transformers, tram cables, phone chargers and shop security gates all leak electromagnetic fields into the air around us. Below them, at very low frequencies, the atmosphere carries the crackle of lightning from storms thousands of kilometres away. Even solid matter has its own voice: railings, windows and bridges vibrate with the life of the street and the wind.
The THRESHOLD RECEIVER is a small, hand-built instrument for listening to this hidden layer of sound. It combines three ways of hearing in one device: an induction receiver that turns electromagnetic fields into sound, a VLF (very low frequency) receiver for natural radio phenomena, and a contact microphone, sensor and probe input for the vibrations inside materials. All of it comes together in a headphone output.
Building and listening
Each participant solders their own receiver from a kit designed especially for this workshop, and builds an antenna to go with it. No experience with electronics or soldering is needed: the kit is deliberately simple, and every step is explained on the board and by Wouter in person. Once the receivers are working, we take them out into Lisbon and listen to the city as an electromagnetic landscape.
Dates and tickets
The workshop takes place twice, on Saturday 14 Nov and Sunday 15 Nov, with building the Threshold Receiver on Saturday and building an personalized antenna for it on Sunday, after which we will hit the streets hunting for signals.
Ticketprice is for both sessions and each session is limited to 15 participants, so tickets must be bought in advance: Send an email here to reserve your spot and pay for your ticket or pay for your ticket at the bar at COSMOS (in advance of the workshop, not on the day).
Price: €60, including the receiver kit, contact microphone, antenna, 9V battery and instructions Please bring: A stone (longer stones work well), a stick (find one that is properly dried out), headphones with a 3.5 mm jack and a soldering iron when you have one.
Wouter Jaspers is an artist and writer working with radio and electromagnetic sound, and the author of Tune In!, a book on radio art published by Korm Plastics.