Sensing Electricity: Electricity in architectural space
(2025)
author(s): Tom Šebestíková
published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022
Master Interior Architecture (INSIDE)
From my own experience, I use electricity every day. Energy prices are rising and the need for more sustainable electricity is rising. As an architect, I'm questioning, how is it possible that I as a user of electricity can't sense further than a switch. The usage of electricity in architectural space is lacking sensation and understanding.
In my research I'm taking a journey through the history of electricity, trying to understand the principles of electric power. With this, I'm recreating multiple simple models demonstrating the presence of electricity. These models would eventually help me in designing architectural interventions I've placed at Maasvlakte as a location for electricity generation and innovation.
Hearing Geoelectric
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Raviv Ganchrow
connected to: KC Research Portal
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Geological minerals (such as copper, quartz and mica) are embedded in audio circuits and conversely geological processes are teeming with electrical activity. Power grids and Integrated circuits could be described as important waypoints in the domestication of lightning. Advanced methods of geo-sensing and globally coordinated sensor networks are currently plumbing Earth attributes by way of its signals: By way of electrical transduction (vibrations converted into electrical fluctuations) or by directly tapping into ground conductivity (telluric current monitoring and geoelectrical methods). Our growing awareness of earthly variations in voltage manifest a complex intertwining of the geologic, the electric and the technic. What are the terrestrial contexts of audio circuits and conversely what electrical circuitry is at work in geology? What does Earth's circuitry sound like? How can such geoelectric hearing redress the binaries of 'natural' and 'technical' in particular with respect to recordings overt mimetic properties? This research aims to develop non-standard tools for environmental voltage acquisition while looking into historical contexts of geoelectrical methods as a means of bridging the geological dimensions in electronic audio towards contemporary modes of environmental listening and hearing.