steve roden
transmissions, 2005
exhibitions: transmissions from space, fresno metropolitan museum of art and science, fresno california ; in resonance, seattle center, seattle, washington; kit bashing, western bridge, seattle, washington

transmissions (voices of objects and skies) was created for the exhibition transmissions from space at the fresno metropolitan museum. the entire body of work included sound, painting, drawing, and sculpture - everything inspired by john glenn’s first transmission from space, as well as rimbaud’s poem “vowels” in which each vowel is given a color equivalent.

i was initially attracted to glenn's text because it sounded like a kind of psychedelic epiphany. in the short transmission, he speaks of thousands of tiny luminescent green lights covering the widow of the capsule, and his description of it is reminiscent of a vision or hallucination. i first worked with the text in 2002 for a large scale painting. this body of work was one of the first times i used a single source to generate works in different mediums.

for the fresno museum, the sound work was composed along a line that ran kind of like an extended W form, in relation to some early display cases that had previously been in the exhibition space. for in resonance and western bridge the piece took its final form which is more of a sculptural presence than an installation as it hangs as a large single cloud-like cluster that one can walk inside of.

the installation consisted of 102 color coded tin cans hanging in a dark room - one for each vowel in glenn’s text, and painted in relation to rimbaud's poem - thus there are 15 blue cans because the letter O appears in glenn's text 15 times. 64 of the cans contained small audio speakers playing an 8 channel soundwork, while other cans contained small 4 watt colored lightbulbs.

the source material for the audio was recordings of satellites by amateur astronomers from the 1960’s through the 1980’s that i found online, including the first transmission of a u.s. satellite. these sounds were processed and transformed electronically.













john glenn's original text: "I am in the middle of a mass of thousands of very small particles that are brilliantly lit up like they are luminescent. They are bright yellowish green, about the size and intensity of a firefly on a real dark night. I have never seen anything like it. They look like little stars. They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window." november 1960

rimbaud's vowel color rules: a= black, e= white, i = red, o = blue, u = green

roden's vowel number rules: a = 1, e = 5, i = 9, 0 = 15, u = 21

some of the satellite sounds used were :

satellite: China 1, tone telemetry and tune "The East is Red", 25 April, 1970

satellite: Cosmos 359, failed Venus probe in violent tumble, August 22, 1970

satellite: Sputnik 1, made in Dallas, Texas on October 7, 1957 using a military surplus AN/FRR3A HF RTTY receiver.

satellite: Atlas , recorded in the 60's by U of Florida Student Satellite Tracking Station

satellite: OKEAN 1, image transmission, January 7, 1990

satellite: SCORE, President Eisenhower's message to the world, Dec 19, 1958 at 2015 UT, 132.435 MHz

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