Siren, by Ray Lee, is a whirling, spinning spectacle of mechanical movement, electronic sound and light. Twenty-nine large metal tripods, up to 3m tall, have rotating arms that spin around, powered by electric motors. Hand built electronic tone generators power loudspeakers at the end of each arm creating an extraordinary sonic texture of pulsing electronic drones. Small LED’s at the end of the arms trace circles of light as the arms rapidly rotate creating a compelling visual image.

The audience, kept at a safe distance from the whirling arms by a safety barrier, are able to move freely about the space and experience different sonic and visual perspectives of the work. Meanwhile the performers move about within the mass of swirling metal machinery, operating their machines and tuning oscillators to change the musical composition while dodging and ducking the rapid movement of the rotating arms.

This ‘choir of rotating sirens’ creates an audio visual spectacle that is essentially a live experience. Wherever you stand in the space it sounds different. As the arms rotate, the sound pulses past the listener with a Doppler-like effect, while the cluster of closely tuned oscillators creates a rich and pervasive sound world. A minimalist phasing of the rhythmic pulses emerges as the varying speeds of rotation of the arms makes the pulsing tones phase against each other in a constantly evolving polyrhythmic structure. The closeness of the tuning of the separate tones sets off a series of amazing overtones that evoke the sense of an ethereal choir.

In an interview, Robert Ayers asked Lee what he finds so fascinating about invisible forces like magnetism and electricity? Lee replied:

I’ve had this preoccupation with invisible forces since my college work in the very early nineteen eighties, when I was burying walkie-talkies in piles of earth, and it continues right up to my current work where I’m seeking to make the existence of this invisible world concrete through using the Theremin.

In fact there are a lot of reasons why I am deeply fascinated by invisible forces. Some are to do with a kind of childlike wonder. How does a radio work? How do TV signals travel through the atmosphere? Why are magnets magnetic? I love this idea of influence from a distance. Magnetism is a physical property that has physical laws to explain it (but that don’t really tell me why) and magnetism surrounds us. We can make magnets by passing an electric current through a wire wrapped around a piece of metal. If you hit a nail with a hammer in the direction of north the nail becomes a temporary magnet. In the last house I lived in I was perturbed to find that all the nails in the floorboards were magnetic enough to influence a compass placed over them. The house, which faced north, had become magnetic. Then you get into electro-magnetic radiation and you discover that, low and behold, everything is part of this electro-magnetic spectrum which goes from cosmic rays through x-rays and visible light to radio waves. To me there is a magical and mysterious quality to magnets. We use them to alleviate rheumatism, to stop water pipes furring up, to improve the flow of fuel in engines, to cure back pain, as well as to levitate trains and take pictures of the insides of our bodies. Right from ancient times magnets have had a mystical, alchemical property. In the eighteenth century, Franz Mesmer was practising magnetic cures before he became known as a mesmeriser. Yet we seem to have retained this ‘primitive’, almost unscientific notion of magnetic cures. If magnets do work maybe we can influence people with powerful magnets, and if we ate enough magnets would we have a magnetic personality?” Read the entire Listening to Ray Lee: Interview by Robert Ayers.

Ray Lee is an artist, composer, performer and lecturer. Over the past twenty years he has made work that includes performance, installation, composition, and photography. Ray Lee’s work investigates his fascination with the hidden world of electromagnetic radiation and in particular how sound can be used as evidence of invisible phenomena. He is interested in the way that science and philosophy represent the universe and his work questions the orthodoxies that emerge and submerge according to the currently fashionable trends. He creates spinning, whirling and pendulous sound installations/performances that explore ‘circles of ether’, the invisible forces that surround us. He lectures in contemporary arts and music at Oxford Brookes University.