4.05 ^E
Paysages électromagnétiques
Electromagnetic Landscapes
nos. 1- 5
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Electromagnetic landscapes are a work concerned with the representation of contemporary space. Somewhat in the manner of Monet when he painted his series of haystacks and cathedrals at different times of the day in order to capture an immediate, temporal and fleeting reality of light and color, electromagnetic landscapes are an attempt to grasp the landscape of today through the new and invisible dimensions created by electromagnetic fluxes and radiation. Nonionizing fields, which made their appearance during the 20th century, form a still largely unknown territory that has the profile of an invisible geographic stratum and delineates an abstract and yet physical geography. With the recent exponential growth of mobile telephone systems in particular, added to the electrical and magnetic fields associated with high-voltage lines, electrical and electronic devices, radio and television transmitters, and halogen lights, artificial dimensions of environmental space are being formed, new patterns in the landscape, electrical and invisible. If the urban development of the glorious thirties was represented by the visible traces of concrete highway systems, today it is invisible networks, crisscrossing the environment, that are under construction. Much more than concrete or steel, electromagnetic radiation is the material of the space in which we are, as of now, being immersed. In the presence of this modi?ed climate, studies are in progress to evaluate the organic and psychic implications of these ?elds for the body. In the prevailing uncertainty, preventive measures are being taken in Europe against what is now being called electrosmog or electromagnetic smog. ( On July 12, 1999, the European Union adopted a recommendation calling for average public exposure to nonionizing electromagnetic radiation to be reduced to the lowest possible level. ) These statutory edicts are intended to limit electromagnetic ?elds by setting up real, but invisible, territorial planning and layouts. The information superhighways may prove to be as nuisance-generating as the vehicular superhighways. Adding to the conventional smog created by chemical air pollution, chemical electromagnetic smog calls for new urban and rural spheres of authority.
 For an architect, it is important to work on this new material of space, to take its measure and open oneself to this present-day dimension of the landscape, de?ned by emissions of electrical and magnetic energy. Space becomes abstract ; arti?ce becomes invisible but no less measurable. And it is this landscape, as an intersection of energy ?uxes, as a place determined by a given quantity of energy, that the electromagnetic landscapes represent. Space is no longer formed in the visible world, in the transformation of various forms of matter and the geometric structure of the land. Place is no longer a formal designation of the territory. It is no longer linked to its visible nature. It has become an electromagnetic ?eld, and its quality depends on its intensity. Urban planning thus becomes the mere emission of energy, of electrically charged particles that "package" the void and modify the invisible content of space. "Energy zones and dormant zones" : this is the cartography of our contemporary landscapes, measurable via the electrical charge of the air.
 Our proposed installation reproduces indoors ?ve different landscapes, as a serial variation in the manner of Monet. The media have changed over the past hundred years, however, with paint giving way to electricity, surface and shape to the invisible and to energy. The packaging is total ; the means used is an expenditure of energy, with no semantic or poetic intermediary. Each of these arti?cial landscapes is an arti?cial ?eld that reproduces a different electromagnetic ?eld ( near a mobile telephone relay antenna, under a high-voltage line, 10 meters from railway overhead lines, listening to a portable phone, near a radio alarm ). Installed within each of these electromagnetic ?elds is a dome ?lled with water in which living matter - moss in this case - has been placed, and next to it is a clump of earth of no particular content. Two special ?uorescent tubes placed on either side of the electromagnetic ?eld diffuse electrical energy whose emitted wavelengths correspond exactly to the spectrum of reception of the pigments in chlorophyll from plant material, so that photosynthesis can be carried out. Fans prevent any heating of the system. The place created therefore becomes a certain quantity of space intrinsically manipulated by an expenditure of energy, reproducing a contemporary outdoor landscape. As for the relationship between the moss, the earth and the electromagnetic ?eld, it remains unknown for the present. Research is being conducted by the Cellular Phytogenetics Institute of the University of Lausanne concerning these relationships and the genetic mutations or metabolic changes that may occur and will become concrete manifestations of the future of life in the invisible geography that we have created here at the end of the 20th century.
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Paysages électromagnétiques
Project conducted at the École Polytechnique Fédérale [Federal Polytechnic] of Lausanne by the Cell Phytogenetics Institute of the University of Lausanne.
April 1999
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Description of pieces :
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Electromagnetic Landscape No. 1
( electromagnetic ?eld, spectral light, living and mineral matter, 50 cm x 65 cm x 50 cm )
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Electromagnetic Landscape No. 2
( electromagnetic ?eld, spectral light, living and mineral matter, 50 cm x 65 cm x 50 cm )
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Electromagnetic Landscape No. 3
( electromagnetic ?eld, spectral light, living and mineral matter, 50 cm x 65 cm x 50 cm )
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Electromagnetic Landscape No. 4
( electromagnetic ?eld, spectral light, living and mineral matter, 50 cm x 65 cm x 50 cm )
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Electromagnetic Landscape No. 5
( electromagnetic ?eld, spectral light, living and mineral matter, 50 cm x 65 cm x 50 cm )
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Décosterd & Rahm, associés