Electrostatic Bell Choir

Darsha Hewitt is a Canadian artist who makes electromechanical sound installations, drawings, videos, an experimental performances. See her other unique work here (take the brilliant “20 Oscillators in 20 Minutes” for example, which is part experimental music performance, technical challenge, and comedy act!). She has an interest in demystifying the invisible systems embedded throughout domestic technology. This is also visible in the above artwork, Electrostatic Bell Choir (2012).

Static electricity affects everyday materials in curious ways – hair stands on end when rubbed with a balloon; laundered clothing clings together if an antistatic sheet is not tossed into the dryer; a static shock transmits from a finger after one drags their feet across the carpet…

The Electrostatic Bell Choir is an electromechanical sound installation that plays with the static electricity emitted from discarded CRT TV monitors. This static, that can be felt when one places their hand on the screen when the TV is turned on, is gleaned for it’s potential to generate subtle movement. Sets of static bells are mounted in front of twenty television sets. A control circuit cycles the TVs on and off, which causes static to build up on the monitors. This static charge agitates hanging pith balls, causing them to lightly strike the bells ‐ resulting in quasi‐melodic compositions.

The TVs are muted, tuned to various channels of white noise and physically spacialized in order to devise a dynamically layered soundscape textured with the sound of the cathode ray tubes warming up. The glow of the screens and the subtle resonance of the bells magically punctuate the dark surroundings of the installation.