About.
THE CONCEPT
Signals Sound Laboratory is a Perth based laboratory for sound exploration. It is an interactive world where visitors can explore the sights and sounds of important and historic electronics such as music synthesisers and laboratory test equipment. The concept was developed by Perth audiovisual artist Will Axten and French electronic music pioneer Gaëtan Schurrer aka naughtyG.
Signals is a vibrant and exotic laboratory scene, somewhat like a film set, within which sits an array of data towers, workstations, racks of iconic music synthesisers, and interconnected vintage lab equipment, which blinks, sings and pulses with activity.
Signals both celebrates and brings to life old and long dormant technology from analogue TV/radio broadcasting, cold war era communications, and analogue synthesiser design.
Will’s personal connection to the theme stems from his childhood infatuation with 1970’s Doctor Who and the other-worldly sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Gaëtan worked in London and the USA from the mid 80’s to the noughties on the cutting edge of the global electronic music explosion that was happening at the time.
Both worlds are brought together for Signals.
THE EQUIPMENT
Signals features a wide array of working technology both old and new.
Pieces are often changed, adapted or reconfigured as artistic statements, while some are set to operate as originally designed to convey their heritage and evoke a sense of nostalgia.
Global pop culture trends celebrate the magic of analogue technology, while visual artists use it as a medium and garage inventors explore new ways to utilise the aging equipment.
Signals picks up on this surge of activity by supporting crowd funded inventions that connect old and new tech, creating a new dialogue across the generations.
THE AESTHETIC
Signals delivers a laboratory environment for audiences to enter that is almost like a film set. Basic carpentry is deployed to house equipment in workstations and interaction plinths. Using a modular approach equipment can switched and moved as needed.
Some aspects of the lab evoke a NASA Control Centre aesthetic, whilst others are a nod to early IBM super computers and communications stations for radio and television.