...an interactive collaboration with the dead

?Messages from the dead have been sought after since the dawn of the electric era.  Thomas A. Watson first paired electricity with the occult, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph during his search to record voices of the dead and inventors Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla realized the possibility of using the radio as a wireless telephone to the dead.  ...

These broadcasts from beyond are by no means accidental.  Radio waves  thread the cosmic fabric, connecting every vibrating molecule with every other vibrating molecule.  Radio is a way for those who have something to say to reach those who want to hear, a means for the dead to explain their situations and predicaments in the afterlife to those not yet there.?
                           -Carola Morales

We install several radio receivers at varying stages of (dis)-assembly (i.e. gutted).  All are tuned to unoccupied frequencies and have headphones attached to them.  The visitor is invited to listen for messages from the beyond, while visually investigating the radios in their presentation cases.  A variety of graphics and text aid in understanding the room and its function. 

Instructional pamphlets of how to set-up a like  experiment at home are provided at the entrance to the room:

?....You don't need to be a mystic or a psycho to hear these voices. Try it for yourself:  Connect your radio to the input of a tape recorder and tune your set to an unoccupied AM, FM or short-wave frequency. There should be absolutely no interference from broadcasting stations.  Lower the radio volume so that the rushing static is just barely audible, then set your cassette deck recording level at a medium setting and you're ready to begin.  You might want to plug a microphone into your cassette recorder and announce the date, time and who'd you like to speak to....?

In America, our fear and denial of death causes many cultural problems.  We need to explore communication with those whose who can provide us with the information we dread.  

Our installation offers a dialogue with the dead in order that we may overcome our dubious perception of  life beyond the grave.  We want to create an opportunity for the dead to collaborate with us, and discuss a subject that, hopefully, they are knowledgable of.

Medium:  display cases, graphics, brochures, radios, microphones, audio recorders, headphones

Date:  1994/1999

Images' source:  Encyclopedia of the Paranormal, Prometheus Books