I was Artist in Residence at Artsway in the early summer of 2002 producing 'Werewolves' as part of the gallery's NavvyGate Residency series, supported by the Regional Arts Lottery Programme through Southern and South East Arts. The heart of the 'Werewolves' installation was a digital reconstruction of the feraliminal lycanthropiser. This was/is an item of occult technology intended to return human beings to animalistic states of awareness. This and other components of the installation used bass and sub-bass frequencies. The ArtSway installation also included psycho-babble texts written on blood-red walls, an electronic hearth with a raging fire, handheld lights for visitors, and time-compressed digital audio field recordings of a day and a night spent in the forest.

Visitors to the installation had access to what appeared to be standard gallery handouts. Although they were designed to be superficially alike, there were seven disparate and contradictory versions. These were intended to provide different visitors with a varying set of assumptions and frameworks for their experiences in the environment.

The exhibition was installed at ArtSway in September and October of 2002. They've never forgiven me for making them paint the walls blood red because they find it every time they sand down the paint.

Lighting was provided by Mathmos Modern.

Six of the texts can be downloaded below in .pdf format (which can be read with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader). Right or Option-click the links to download them. The seventh text degenerated from English into generic Lorem Ipsum text, which is dummy copy used in the layout of printed material when a real text is not available. Please bear in mind that the information contained in them is expressly designed to mislead.

01. Typical art bollocks 60kb Adobe .pdf file
02. FalseTrue 60kb Adobe .pdf file
03. Historical reconstruction 60kb Adobe .pdf file
04. Sceptical 60kb Adobe .pdf file
05. SciTech 60kb Adobe .pdf file
06. TrueFalse 60kb Adobe .pdf file

Some audio from the installation:
Extract (5 minutes)
MP3 (1.7 mb)

The tones used in the installation:
28 Hz sine wave "Nausea" tone (right or option click to download):
AIF sound file

19 Hz sine wave "Ghost" tone (right or option click to download):
AIF sound file

3 Hz + 9 Hz (=0.56 Hz) binaural sine wave "lycanthropiser" tone (right or option click to download):
AIF sound file

Links to further information:
The 8th September 2003 edition of The Guardian (via a University of Hertfordshire study) reported on the same infrasound techniques used in 'Werewolves'. "Sorrow, coldness, anxiety and shivers down the spine" were among the reactions from 750 human guinea pigs who took part in the study.
A BBC article covered the same experiment.
Another BBC report on sonic and environmental hauntings.
An excellent and comprehensive Fortean Times article about psychoacoustic weapons and technology, including the Feraliminal Lycanthropiser.

Top of page: Very murky infrared installation view of the blacked-out room housing 'Werewolves'. It (sort of) shows: visitors with handheld lights and handout texts; fire (on wall, above visitors); some wall text ["I see and hear things other people don't: (a) Never (b) Rarely (c) Sometimes (d) Quite often (e) Regularly (f) Constantly"]; another visitor.
Below: Closeup of the handheld silicone 'Bubble' lights given to visitors for use in the darkened installation.