52Hz is spectrogram of three relational units: The anthropocene (top) featuring a recording of “They’ve answered” by Galina Vishenevskaya, a Russian opera singer who was once married to a sailor. The holocene (middle) 52-hertz frequency whale song, unique to one particular species of whale. And the capitalocene (bottom) the sound of a Hyundai container ship engine at full speed.

 

The three represent a core relationship in the libidinal economy: a desire expressed through poetry in a cultural voice, techno-accelerationism driven by the commodification of said desire, and the change this process imposes on the sonic environment of the planet.

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This work was commissioned by Kulturehuset, Stockholm for the New Shape Forum Project.