active city circuit

performance by Martin Howse

Active City Circuit is a performance within urban space (Berlin) across two locations examining electromagnetic (EM) substance and duration/time scale. The primary performance location (near former Palast der Republik site) will witness the construction of an active circuit divining and making sense of local EM signals transmitted through the earth. Several holes will be drilled in street or pavement, probes inserted with further equipment filtering and amplifying this signal. The signal is inserted within a constructed circuit assembled during the performance using local metal structures, copper tape, and graphite, audibly amplified within local space and connected by way of FM radio transmission with a distant site. This second site will use the architecture of city apparatus as an antenna for the dissemination of local EM emissions. The connection between the two sites maintains a time relation (special relativity, the constant of the speed of light, deep time of radio telescopy), and is subject to the constraints of a city architecture.