ARTICLES, REVIEWS, AND INTERVIEWS ABOUT POWERLINES

ARTICLES

Between Seeing and Hearing
Sensing Energy at Another Level
Musicworks Magazine (Toronto), 1999

Composer Helen Hall’s creative exploration of artificial electromagnetic radiation and its effects has resulted in an award-winning film, Powerlines. Conceptually the fundamental unit of the film is the waveform: sound as waveform, light as waveform, film as a medium which combines the two. Electromagnetic radiation is also a waveform, Hall can feel it, unheard and unseen but palpably present, like disruptive noise.The soundtrack for Powerlines is based on the sixty-cycle frequency of electrical power throughout North America, heard in recorded sounds from the environment and played on cello. Every sound in the film is part of the music. There is no distinction between music and soundtrack. When Hall began malting this film she thought of it as music translated into dance and light, the dance and the visuals all coming originally from the music. During production Hall reached a point where she had to find a balance between all the elements. Although she thought of herself as a composer, she was becoming a filmmaker.

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Design Noir
The Secret Life of Electronic Objects
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby –
Basel; Boston; Berlin Birkhäuser • 2001

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