Electroprobe Installation

Electroprobe Installations. A series of site-specific installations which incorporate an assemblage of electronic and electric objects alongside a magnetic microphone called the electroprobe. The microphone imbues the inanimate with life by ‘listening’ to the otherwise inaudible, internal sounds of its surrounding objects.

The ‘Electroprobe’ is a device for listening in on our electronic surroundings; electric murmurs, magnetic hums and inaudible whistles, an attempt to subvert the inherently rational, objective nature of tools and everyday commodities by affording them a seemingly emotional, autonomous life.

The first in the series, Electroprobe Installation #1, Shit I forgot the iPod was installed in 2005 at Museum for Contemporary Art, Münster. Arranged by their electromagnetic tunes, the various objects manifested as an electronic ‘orchestra’ which the viewer is able to hear with the use of the electroprobe. Following this formation, subsequent Electroprobe Installations incorporated local, magnetic and electronic objects to create symphonies and dialogues between otherwise inanimate and inaudible objects, audible to viewers through headphones.

In a departure from this active participation, Electroprobe Installation #5, shown in Daelim Museum, Seoul, in 2014 does not require the viewer to manually engage with the electroprobe, but instead outwardly transmits sound. Fixed to a boom arm, the electroprobe hovered above a circular arrangement of electronic objects, transmitting their secret, inner workings.

Creating an internal dialogue between objects, the electroprobe installations explore the relationship between the living and the inert, the boundaries between human and machine, invoking the question ‘what can give an object a soul?’