31 Suns (Dawn Chorus)
Video of a solar transit in H-Alpha, 31 radio frequencies in the LF ranges, Analog Solutions Leipzig-r synthesizers, DIY Atari Punk Console, Icom PCR-2500, E-Smog-Scan software developed with Processing.
31 soleils (Dawn Chorus) is a video installation that makes use of a software (e-smog-scan) an antenna (G5RV) and a USB radio (Icom PCR) to detect the appearance of radio stations at dawn. The system automatically tunes to a radio frequency, analyzes the presence of signals and records and compiles them in a database. For each day of recording the system creates a graph that shows the movements and power variations of the waves induced by the sun.
These images/graph are then used as a score: they are linked to the radio frequencies and the modifications they undergo. A series of synthesizers replay this score and give rhythm to each of the 31 analyzed frequencies. When the void of the radio silence is broken by a radio station, the synthesizer’s rhythm makes way for the tuned-into station. One then hears the voices of American preachers, Cuban propaganda, Radio Taiwan, or even a signal from a Russian submarine, because they are made audible through the power of the solar star.
Solar transit
The image of the sun was filmed with the help of a H-Alpha (Coronado PST) solar telescope. This type of optics only lets red light through and this in a very precise wavelength; that of hydrogen. Since the sun is mainly made up of hydrogen, the resulting image accentuates the differences at the surface. Through the telescope the sun appears in a monochrome red. The texture at the surface reveal sunspots that are hundreds of times bigger than the earth: at the centre of the image a pixel corresponds to 26,000 km. At the zenith, the contour of the red disk reveals solar prominences, these ejections made up of plasma. Filmed on the same days as the radio recordings, the video shows the state of the sun, its activity, the one that modifies the propagation of radio waves
