Heliopause refers to an idea of Johann Wilhelm Ritter. He was convinced that all living and dead nature is based on a general principle of duality, which leads to pulsations, periods and magic oscillations. While some of his contemporaries were convinced by these ideas – Novalis wrote: “Hat man den Rhythmus der Welt weg, so hat man die Welt weg.” – others thought that “he [was] about to switch to the night-side of science“, Volta, who respected his discoveries, was very sceptical about what he called Ritter’s “occult science” parts, like the practice of rhabdomancy and the “speculative science” with the metaphysical thoughts Ritter had while doing his experiments. Volta on Ritter: “In one word his views are too transcendent, he runs and pushes things too far.”
Not only Ritter was certain that light and sound were the same phenomenon, oscillation in different frequencies: “Ton und Licht stören sich nicht! Wie aber im Grunde auch könnten sie es, da sie ja eins sind?”, but he was also convinced that every physical fact could also be read in a metaphorical way: “Wie das Licht, so ist auch Ton Bewusstsein.”
Based on this thinking he developed the idea of a planetary music with the sun in its center receiving all the pulsations of the planets. In a short text he sketches the idea of the possibility to use his own body as an instrument to interpret that music of the planetary instrument reflected by the “inhabitants of the sun”.
Heliopause
I did a re-interpretation of this idea taking an audio recording of electrons ejected during a solar blast and modifying it following the rules of EVP-recordings without adding new sounds. This final sound is emitted by the image-panels and this sound was also used to create the images on them by letting vibrate drops of Schnaps. So the “Lichtfigur” and “Klangfigur” (light and sound-figure) get back together in a kind of “Feuerschrift” (fire writing), an Idea Walter Benjamin liked in Ritter’s theory.
“Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits”, MUMA Melbourne
