From an early age I have been fascinated with sound and vibration. I studied the physical basis of music as a young composer and was very excited to discover fundamental principles of resonance, harmonics, and tuning. This led me to continue to explore these concepts with computers, and I applied them in my work as a composer. Through this approach I developed an intuitive understanding of music as an ‘energy system’, while at the same time I also became intensely aware of the adverse effects of computers and electronics technology on my health.
The acoustic principles I was exploring are rooted in the mathematics and philosophy of ancient Greece, and reveal a greater harmony with the natural world. The artificial radiation I experienced from mainframe computers in the 1980s was a form of dissonance. I wanted to learn more about this paradox by making electromagnetic radiation visible and audible in my work. The result of this endeavor was Powerlines, my first film, which explores a theme of incoherent energy systems, or electromagnetic pollution.
While researching this film it became clear that conventional science does not acknowledge any interaction between electromagnetic fields and living organisms. It was at this point that I discovered the work of a small group of scientists and inventors pursuing advanced energy research on their own. They have a deep knowledge of the role of electromagnetism in living systems and of the potentially harmful effects of artificial radiation. Their research has been inspired by Nikola Tesla’s experiments with new energy at the turn of the last century, and they are taking this work further.
Tesla discovered that the earth has an infinite reservoir of natural electricity, and invented a whole system to harness it. He considered this his greatest achievement, but it is still misunderstood and rejected by the mainstream scientific community. His intuitive understanding of nature differed radically from our current science. Believing this approach to energy was a violation of natural laws, Tesla rejected it and worked with the simple mathematics of the ancient Greeks. As a composer I came to understand that his knowledge was based on acoustic principles of resonance, harmonics, vibration, and tuning. It was the application of these principles that produced outstanding results in his experiments that harness new energy. Tesla was also electrically sensitive and performed experiments on himself to explore both the healthful and harmful effects of electricity on the body. These discoveries have created a completely new path of ‘energy medicine’.
If the aether is inherent to the fabric of nature, as Tesla’s observations, experiments, and inventions suggest it is, then it could be the basis for an entirely new understanding of energy. It would potentially be the end of environmental destruction to fulfill basic human needs, and the beginning of living in greater harmony with the natural world. It is part of a lineage of knowledge that once again brings physics, medicine, and music together in the tradition of ancient Sumeria and Greece, and could provide an essential new path of knowledge for the twenty-first century.
The aether has always been a part of the cultural understanding of most civilizations, and was discarded as a concept only in the last century of western science. I learned from Tesla’s experimental work that the structure of everything in the universe is the same as the internal structure of music. The acoustic phenomena of vibration, resonance, harmonics and tuning are found everywhere in the natural world, and so can be made visible and audible in image and sound.
I believe Nikola Tesla’s vision of a living universe that is filled with the dynamic energy he called the ‘aether’ or the ‘wheelwork of nature’, the principles of energy he had discovered, and the strong ethical foundation of all of his work, provides a historical precedent for a new understanding of our inherent connection to the world around us, and it is one that is absolutely essential now.
This is why I am making Pictures of Infinity.
Oak Tree in Serbia, Spring 2006
Pictures of Infinity 