Exotic Audio Research

— Rob Young, The Wire (March 1997)

“[The] latest release with the avant garde musician and agent provocateur John Duncan is a collaboration [with Bernhard Günter] called HOME: UNSPEAKABLE, based on a text by Samuel Beckett. Together with sound designer and performance artist Max Springer, Duncan was also responsible for an extraordinary aural document of an immense particle physics experiment currently being undertaken in California. The CD, called THE CRACKLING, appeared last year on Günter’s trente oiseaux label. It was composed from digitally edited and treated segments of recordings made by Duncan on location at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) in California, which is a straight line of prefabricated steel structures more than three kilometres long, terminating in a cylindrical, solid steel collision chamber 20 metres thick. Electrons are driven up the tunnel by microwave drivers spaced at ten metre intervals, achieving velocities just below the speed of light before colliding with other particles at a temperature of three billion degrees Kelvin. The chamber, according to Duncan, is colossal, ‘easily large enough to house several 747s, one on top of the other’.

“Duncan has a long history of esoteric and transgressive research in the name of art and enquiry: his STRESS CHAMBER installation has parallels with the earlier Ultra 3 performance, while some of his legendary performances almost verge on the criminal (he once invited an audience of women to assault him sexually, having first shown them an hour’s worth of hardcore pornography [FOR WOMEN ONLY]). THE CRACKLING, an astonishing record by any standards, is not only an aural record of the most gargantuan experimental apparatus in the history of physics, but also — deep breath — an inquiry into the nature of humanity’s view of its place in the cosmos in the light of the new discoveries about the behaviour of particles.

“Prior arrangement with the authorities allowed Duncan unprecedented access to the SLAC site. ‘The recordings were made in a few hours,’ he recalls, ‘with particular attention to the microphone placements and movements: put into the tubes of the 120 Hz electron drivers along the tunnel, moved slowly along a section of the tunnel, put into a liquid nitrogen exhaust vent, placed in the center of the collision chamber hall, at various points of the cryogenic system and around the collision chamber itself.’

“Duncan’s sleevenotes portray the site as a necropolis: ‘The place is full of contradictions: structures built to dwarf and outlast their creators, designed to generate subatomic events that take place in a time scale that is experientially impossible to imagine, using forces and processes that are hostile or lethal to human life, yet are entirely human-created. A ‘city of the dead’ that seems to have an existence of its own with or without its operators. ‘

“Seen in this light, Duncan compels a reading of this enormous crucible as an atomic-age cathedral: a monumental and ingenious piece of architecture dedicated to exploring the origins and driving forces of the universe. ‘Yes,’ he concurs, ‘by now it’s pretty well established that science is the accepted frame for explaining the findings, and in that sense it’s “trusted” as a religion is “trusted”. It’s also clear, to many scientists among others, that there is infinite knowledge that the discipline of science can’t even begin to explain. The SLAC and CERN [a Swiss ring-accelerator] facilities, for all their efforts at precision, are just two of any number of examples that show just how clumsy scientific research can be. Putting faith in science — or in anything else — to provide all answers to all questions is a howling, tragic mistake. I’m interested in the entire process.'”