Floris Vanhoof’s “Antenna”: Snaps, Crackles, Hums, Noises, Bleeps, and Pulses

Floris Vanhoof, Antenna (2024). Neighbouring Frequencies exhibition, FIBER Festival 2024.
Photo credit: Carmen Vollebregt.

Your artistic journey started with film. You studied experimental cinema in Brussels and your first projects involved 16 mm celluloid experimental films and slide installations. What led you to shift your focus toward sound in your practice?

I discovered that sound, like film, is a form of projection. This idea of projecting sound inspired me. In 2018, I created an installation called “Talking Gongs,” which features two orchestral gongs, nearly a metre in diameter, hanging from trees. They "talk" to each other in a way embodying an animistic idea where I made characters out of them. Although it's just electronics, it feels like they communicate. When the electronics operate fast enough, it becomes pitch; when slow, it turns into rhythm, and they strike the gongs using transducers, similar to the inside of a loudspeaker, creating physical sound.

Another installation from that time is “Polyhedra,” which was created with modular sculptures. I found a way to make modular sculptures using triangles, squares, and pentagons made from cardboard, held together with rubber bands. I made 50 sculptures, most of which hang in the air with a loudspeaker inside. Some are small, and others are as large as a person standing on the ground with a bigger speaker, like a bass speaker, inside them. This work is inspired by the sound of a classical orchestra, where numerous musicians create a rich, immersive experience. I couldn't replicate this effect with live music played through stereo speakers. But using 50 speakers could achieve this. Small speakers produce high-treble sounds differently than large ones. So, if there is a movement from high to low in music, it will also move in space from one speaker to another. With 50 speakers, this effect becomes very exciting to play with.

What sparked your interest in exploring imperceptible phenomena?

I often have to sit on ideas for a long time. I was interested in invisible waves for a long time but couldn't find a way to work with them. Many of my works involve translating one medium to another, and I struggled to find a good medium to translate these invisible waves.

During my first exhibition, I placed a grand piano on its side. The audience could hit the piano with tennis rackets and balls, producing acoustic sounds. I amplified these sounds with guitar pickups and added a short delay so the sound would come back electronically treated, creating a wave-like effect. One could hear both acoustic sounds from the piano and electronic sounds from the back, which I found intriguing both in terms of sound and visual impact.

You never look at the grand piano like that. And I always wanted to turn a piano on its side again. It loses its mechanical function, creating an interesting visual. In the long run, I realised this could be exactly the medium to translate these invisible waves I was interested in. I even made a simple drawing of a grand piano on its side with an antenna on top. At first, I wasn't sure if it would work, but I had a fixed idea of how it should look. This image stayed with me for months, and the project took almost two years to complete.

Let’s talk more about the “Antenna,” with the grand piano on its side, that you presented at FIBER Festival 2024. I read that you got interested in the omnipresence of electromagnetic waves while listening to the radio during a thunderstorm and hearing that the lightning strikes became audible as cracks and pops. How did this experience influence your approach to incorporating electromagnetic waves into your artwork?

I was listening to classical music on the radio during a thunderstorm. I noticed that the sounds and the radio would crackle with each lightning strike. I wondered, what is this? Of course, it's interference in the electromagnetic spectrum. This made me interested in how I can capture those phenomena. I initially thought the electromagnetic spectrum was mainly used for human communication, but a significant part of it also comes from nature. It's really interesting how these two sources interact and interfere with each other.

When talking about the inspiration for this work, you mention Alvin Lucier’s Sferics, an experimental music piece that involves recording natural radio-frequency emissions originating in the ionosphere. Lucier used sensitive antennas and receivers capable of detecting very low frequency (VLF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) waves. By translating these emissions into sound, he allows listeners to hear the "music" of the ionosphere, which is usually inaudible to the human ear. What particularly fascinated you about this work?

I found a book by Alvin Lucier, who indeed once made recordings of spherics—a phenomenon occurring when things enter the atmosphere. If you're in a quiet place without traffic or other noise, you can hear these sounds with an antenna. He made his antenna for that purpose, and I really liked the sound. Then, I learned how to make antennas myself. I made large crosses with lots of copper wire and started listening to the waves in the air. I could tune into radio frequencies and listen to various sounds in an analog way. However, it was challenging to translate this to the piano because it produced a lot of noise. I realised I needed to avoid listening to a single radio frequency, as you do with a radio station. Instead, I thought the piano, with its many strings, could listen to multiple frequencies.

How does your artwork explore the interaction between natural forces and man-made signals?

The main idea behind the installation is that there are thousands of waves in the room we are in at any given moment. Some go through the walls, some pass through our bodies, and others bounce off the walls, traveling back and forth until they dissipate. These waves travel globally, and I found this concept very exciting. They are used for so many things, including playing classical music on the radio. However, it's fascinating how nature can disrupt these signals.

Imagine listening to a slow classical music piece on a rainy, dark day. Suddenly, the outside environment disrupts the music, bringing the outside inside. This idea is similar to what composer David Tudor explored—using small electronic circuits to create big sounds. It's like listening to your radio with good music, but then something big, like a thunderstorm, interrupts it. So, what is the difference in sound when it comes from a source like a thunderstorm and other big natural processes, compared to something like a phone?

I translate these phenomena. When the antenna receives a wave, it goes into the computer and opens or closes a gate, making the electromagnets work. This action affects the piano strings. I'm not sending the received frequency directly to the piano because that wouldn't work. Instead, I choose the frequencies for the strings.