Extended Reach, Telephony and Telematics

Psi net was a of series of three hour long live, on-site, remote viewing and mediumship experiments made over three nights at a ruined ironstone mine in East Cleveland applying highly sensitive thermographic optical scanning, bio-feed back heart recording and voice recordings transmitted live locally via a microwave link. The work was made in response to the landscape and history of the post industrial mining landscape of the area as part of Earthwire and was developed over a several month period by gathering sources on the history of the local industrial, and ironstone mining communities from collections and museums.

Psi net featured spiritualist mediums Audrey, Darren, Sharon and Margaret from Norton spiritualist church. As spiritualists they believe in the continuation of life after death and that this can be proved through mediumship. I arranged that them to take part in mediumship experiments and seances at Skelton Park ironstone mine, an arrangement of ruined buildings preserved over a hundred years in the landscape above the old ironstone mine workings.

It was agreed to make an open seance circle above the exposed drift mine workings over three nights after dark for one hour at which times we would meditate and respond to the presence of spirits. The maps of the underground mining tunnels which were now disintegrated through subsidence still extended miles in all directions like roots or mutilated arteries. The warren of flooded pit shafts were routes that at one time had been filled with miners bound to working underground in darkness.

This psychic and subjective accounting and relating to the invisible world brought with it a rich narrative account of the place and its history. These experiments and the unfolding stories were the improvised means to create a living virtual museum.

The work was designed as a public performance to be displayed on two sites simultaneously. The sites were one mile apart and linked using micro wave broadcasting system. Powerful lights and generators were installed to illuminate a church in the foreground and the ruined mine along a sight line. Tents were made from found materials in a field beyond the church and live video and sound broadcast was received locally on a monitors and several speakers within these make-shift tents. Both the church and mine were clearly visible in their night illumination by spectators in the field
The thermographic optical scanning, bio-feed back heart recording and voice recordings were transmitted via microwave to spectators occupying the field and the tents.

The results were recorded and kept

The curatorial themes of the EarthWire proposed radical uses of art and technology in a rural context and events took place at outdoor sites in East Cleveland around the villages of Loftus, Upleatham, Boulby, Lingdale and Kilton Thorpe. The project was curated by Tracey Warr and Rob la Frenais.

View the PSI NET Gallery

Publications and Presentations

Information Arts, Intersections of Art, Science and Technology by Stephen Wilson 2002

Information Arts Link

Virtual Realism by Michael Heim

I.S.E.A., Spacescapes/The Body, Helsinki, Finland

COIL Journal of Experimental Media, Vol.1

Exposure Journal, Power and Control: Imagin(in)g Technology, The Society of Photographic Education, vol 30

Mute Magazine, Earthwire, Taking the Alien Exam by Rob la Frenais

The End of Reality, Art and Technology Symposium, Bratislava