sound installation - 2026
Wires, coils, mixer, sound system.
"With Line End, Nicolas Montgermont created an installation that transforms electrical signals from the museum infrastructure into a sonic composition that equally renegotiates the relationship between signal and noise. The resounding ‘buzz’ comes from a 50 Hertz pulse signal that is a standard for electricity grids, such as in France and Australia, but may vary across countries or geographical regions. The artist highlights the ubiquity of these systems and their ‘stabilising’ mechanism. Montgermont draws a parallel between the telegraph, as an early system for the distribution of electrical signals and present-day communications such as internet cables that share the same underwater routes with optical fibre technologies laid on top, and the grid. The grid is taken for granted, running to stabilise a 50 Hertz pulse signal for our everyday electricity needs, made visible by the artist through a real time reading of the Australian electricity market consumption and its trading across supply sources (such as coal, solar and wind)."
Anabelle Lacroix, Transmission Point Catalog, 2026
Context
150 years ago, a metal cable was laid at the bottom of the ocean to connect New Zealand to the rest of the British Empire. In the city of Nelson, NZ, and at the Laperouse cable station, AU, operators worked day and night at either end of the cable to encode Morse code messages about news from the Empire, status of ships, weather reports, and commercial information about supply and demand. By creating a global infrastructure that we now refer to as the Victorian Internet1, this technical device helped to consolidate colonial power by increasing London's control over its distant territories and promoting speculation and investment.
Telegraphen Verbindungen der Erdtheile, by Adolf Stieler extracted from Stielers Handatlas, 1891, 8th edition. (The Victorian Internet).
In contrast to the materialistic and colonial control issues, the technical prowess of the construction of this system reveals unexpected poetic dimensions. This long conductor, laid at the bottom of the ocean, acts as a sensor for underwater activity, a radio antenna, even before the concepts of electricity propagation outside a metal conductor had been formulated. Storms, lightning, aurora, earthquakes and underwater volcanic eruptions interfere with the cable's electricity2 and are detected at its ends. This phenomenon is similar to what has been observed elsewhere, where long telegraph power lines act as antennas for natural radio phenomena, and are listened to with interest by some operators after dark3.
An electrical distribution system such as the one used in eastern Australia is an extension of this type of infrastructure, albeit with a different purpose. From Cairns to Port Lincoln, the Australian grid is a continuous network of metal conductors covering its territory. This technical continuity means that an event at one end of the network can affect the entire system, all the way to the other end. It is also a mechanism that is subject to natural disturbances. Storms and lightning, of course, but also solar storms that manifest as aurora australis, which, depending on their intensity, have the potential to completely transform the network operation. The largest solar storm ever recorded occurred in September 1859, causing severe disruption to electrical systems, to such an extent that telegraph lines could operate without any electrical power4. The Australian Space Weather Forecasting Center continuously observes the sun and produces space weather reports enabling electrical operators to protect their networks in the event of large-scale solar events.
The Australian electrical grid distribute a continuous 50 Hz pulse signal. It is an important harmonic element of post-industrial human societies that impacts the way we perceive our sound environment. R. Murray Schafer recounts how he observed the effects of this pulse during workshops he led in North America and Europe5. After a meditation, he instructs participants to produce the pitch that seems to come most naturally from their bodies: the note produced is a G sharp in Europe—a harmonic of 50 Hz—and a B in North America, a harmonic of 60 Hz, which corresponds to the frequency of the local electrical grid.
Real time display of the electricity sources.
Line End seeks to establish a sensible link between these different concepts and historical events. By setting up a sound device that allows visitors to listen live to the electricity in the Laperouse Museum, as well as to examine the electrical cables hidden in the museum walls, Line End connects these two worlds: the historic telegraph network and the electrical distribution grid. What can we perceive in the variations of the electrical pulse? Are there links to weather events on earth or in space? How can we connect to the historical imagination of the submarine cable? Can we imagine the echoes of late-19th-century electrical communications in the electrical disturbances we are experiencing today in 2026?
1 For example, in Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers, 1998.
2 John Walter Ross, An end to isolation – the La Perouse Cable Station, 2016, p. 38.
3 Douglas Kahn, Earth Sound Earth Signal, 2016, chapters 2 & 5.
4 More information on this event can be read on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
5 R. Murray Schafer, Le paysage sonore, 1977, Ed. Wildproject, p 154.
DR, Photo 1 taken by Jessica Bauer, edited by Nicolas Montgermont.