Note: Audio may be very quiet, and require headphones.
Note: Audio may be very quiet, and require headphones.
Original 2011 description
Spectral Quartet is a composition by Woody Sullender, and is a web adaptation of the project Whispering Spectres, a series of FM micro-radio transmissions originally launched in NYC in 2010.
The audio content consists of filtered radio signals, culled from various web streams from the Internet. These signals are being passed through many "band pass filters", a type of equalizer that allows a small range of frequencies through while attenuating frequencies outside of this range. In effect, most of the audio signal is "erased" except for a narrow stratum of frequency material. This work highlights small, hidden musical moments that are occurring on radio, but are usually rendered inaudible by other elements in the sound.
Although the Internet can bridge disparate communities, our experience on the web is of a customized landscape, with content tailored to our ideological views, our shopping behaviors, our socio-economic demographics, etc.. Spectral Quartet literally re-unites these voices into a singularized, aestheticized, quiet moment.
2026 update
In 2010, the net art organization Turbulence commissioned a web adaptation. Spectral Quartet was originally built in Flash and relied on outdated web audio streams. The piece has been redeveloped in 2026 using contemporary web approaches - although it will certainly decay as the technology shifts.
As a smaller component of the larger project Whispering Spectres, additional documentation is provided here.
Spectral Quartet was a later iteration within a body of my work that utilized erasure. Taking cues from dub, the "remix", and "Erased de Kooning", I created several works using band-pass filters, beginning with my "erased" version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which transformed this icon of punk co-optation into a quiet meditation.
This gesture was extended to live FM radio signals with Whispering Spectres, with a series of pirate radio broadcasts as well as an installation at Pace University in 2011.
Rooted in discourse around public space and the low-power FM radio movement, the basic gesture of Whispering Spectres was reactionary, as a reclamation of public acoustic space as well as a détournement of existing FM radio.
An earlier recording of a prototype of Whispering Spectres, filtering German FM radio, was published by the online audio journal Textsound