Four Foxhole Radios

Installation 2000

A series of working radios constructed from unlikely materials such as chewing gum wrappers, broken light bulbs and rusty nails offers proof of technology in its absence.

Dimensions: variable

Materials:
wire, chewing gum, discarded Starbucks coffee cup, America Online free installation CDs, pint vodka bottle, votive candles, aluminum foil, pencil, light bulb, beer drinking glass, the New Testament, clamps, alligator clips, wooden ironing boards, car batteries, speakers, home made AM radio transmitters

"Four Foxhole Radios" (2000) looks at the basics of transforming the radio waves that inaudibly permeate our environment at all times into audible sounds. The very early history of radio encountered this problem - transforming electrical waves in the ether into audible messages - and created a variety of systems of tuning and detection to accomplish it. Basically a radio consists of an antenna hoisted skyward and a connection to the earth; a tuning system consisting of coils of wire and some sort of capacitor; a detector which rectifies the high frequency waves and generates an electrical audio signal, and a transducer to convert these signals into sound. Much of the experimentation in the early days surrounded these basic elements of radio receivers. In particular, many exotic combinations of minerals, liquids and metals, clockwork motors and magnets were employed as detectors including the most famous, a "cats whisker" - a thin metal wire lightly grazing a crystal of galena ore. A vast variety of antenna designs were tried including kites, and the design of the tuning elements rivaled even pasta for its plethora of forms. After the invention of the vacuum tube in 1907, radio began to achieve its final form and these early experimental radios disappeared, except for the crystal-sets built by generations of school children to induct them into the culture of technology.

During World War II a number of designs emerged for what came to be termed "foxhole radios" that closely resembled these early radio sets in design and function. The idea was that they could be tinkered together in the field by soldiers who found themselves without real communication equipment, to tune into the radio waves carrying the information that was so vital a part of that war. They depended on a variety of available manufactured parts combined with improvised elements to form a simple but functioning radio receiver. In a sense, they might also be termed "desert island radios" inasmuch as they imply the possibility of both technology and trade far removed from from the organized channels of commerce. Like ET's coat-hanger and Speak'n'Spell assemblage-communicator, the foxhole radios served to continue a connection to a point of origin that had been lost. This ritualization of activities and materials for the purpose of achieving interaction with an invisible sphere has been called "cargo cultism" when applied to other cultures. Thus, the foxhole radio served both as a ritual link to the spirit of the tribe and an assemblage-self-portrait of a stranger constructed with the materials in his environment.

In creating my piece "4 Foxhole Radios" I have considered these various features of radios - radios as proof of technology in its absence, radios as channels to the unseen, and radios as portraiture and landscape. It turns out that semiconductors - the central discovery on which our communications culture turns, and among the most exotic products of materials science - are in fact everywhere to be found. I have made junction diodes from burnt out lightbulbs, mesquite barbeque charcoal, rusty batteries and eighteenth century nails; variable and fixed capacitors from packs of chewing gum, bibles and discarded AOL CD's; coils and variocouplers from votive candles, whisky bottles and shotglasses. These diverse materials serve to make the pieces both playful and instructive. They offer a promise of communication and connection even in the direst of situations or in total isolation. They reveal that the manufactured material world is still part of the greater universe and that, unbeknownst to Bill Gates, semiconductor physics is unaccountably breeding in hidden places. Because they actually function as radios, they may help us to feel at home in the world. At any given time and place Frank Sinatra's voice can be heard in the radio waves. For the installations I add other sounds into the ether with small low powered transmitters so that you may as likely hear Joseph Stalin or Spike Jones.

Exhibited at: Foster Art Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire Jan-Feb 2000

Thanks: Michael Solway