Research

Undead Matter, a new series by Sophie J Williamson, is an unfolding conversation about where life lies in the ever-turning matter of our universe, as it rhythmically resurfaces over millennia. In this third episode, writer, Daisy Hildyard speaks with marine microbiologist, Karen Lloyd about 100-million-year-old microbes, that breathe and excrete minerals: bridging the organic and the non-organic, the living and the non-living. 

Undead Matter, a new series by Sophie J Williamson, is an unfolding conversation about where life lies in the ever-turning matter of our universe, as it rhythmically resurfaces over millennia. In this second episode, poet Myung Mi Kim speaks with geographer, Kathryn Yusoff about the lives and histories demarcated in the silence between words and amongst rock strata.

Undead Matter, a new series by Sophie J Williamson, is an unfolding conversation about where life lies in the ever-turning matter of our universe, as it rhythmically resurfaces over millennia. In the first episode, artist and poet, Himali Singh Soin and astrobiologist, Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe discuss signs of life from the cosmos, the theory of panspermia and the biosphere of the galaxy.

In this new Auxiliary by Chris Cutler, we’ll find the Theremin at work in art ensembles, symphony orchestras, a jazz group, rock bands and on film and television scores – both alone and in quantity –, and there’s a rare sighting of Nikolai Obukhov’s Croix Sonore from his extraordinary Third and Last Testament.

In PROBES #33 we begin to trace the impact of the application of electricity on the world of music and look more closely at the Musical Telegraph, the two-hundred-ton Telharmonium (a 19th century mechanical synthesizer) in America, as well as the Theremin and the visionary Rhythmicon in the USSR.

Amongst the new acoustic inventions, Chris Cutler highlights here the Rumitone, the Uberorgan, a whole Anarchestra, Philip Dadson's Sproings, a Violimba, some scraper flutes, an Aquavine, Diego Stocco's Custom-built Orchestra, an elastic aerophone-centriphone, Leonardo da Vinci's viola organista, Martin Molin's heroic Marble Machine and many other hopeful and inspired monsters.

In PROBES #32 Chris Culter traces the history of some newly invented instruments (in the 20th century), including the Chromelodion, the Boo, the Mazdaphone, the Quadrangulis Reversum, the Crystal Baschets, Harry Bertoia’s Sonambiente, the unearthly Daxophone and Arthur Harris’ Mother Lap Cello Harp, Whispering Harp and the14.5 metre viol, whose lowest strings are inaudible to the human ear.

Chris Cutler looks at the diversity of instruments extended out from the xylophone and their sometimes surprising use in almost every imaginable musical context.  

In PROBES #31 we begin to consider evolutionary pressures and invented instruments and follow the twists and turns that led the xylophone out of Asia and Africa, spun it around the world and metamorphosed it into the vibraphone; with a coda from the intonarumori.

Chris Cutler takes us on a stroll through music made  (variously) with water, stones, stage props, ice, snow, stalactites, Tesla coils, sand dunes, leaves, flowers, grass, twigs, glass and a coffee can.