For well over a decade, Erkki Veltheim has been involved in some of the most critical contemporary sound works
performed in Australia. Celebrated widely for his performance approach, that orbits outward from his extended
violin practice, Erkki Veltheim’s recorded works are grossly under represented. With Ganzfeld Experiment, his first
published solo recording, he lays out his methodology for creating music that is intense and provocatively ex-
trasensory.
Veltheim’s Ganzfeld experiment is an audiovisual work for electric violin, video and signal processing. In para-
psychology, a Ganzfeld experiment is a test for evidence of extrasensory perception, particularly telepathic
communication. It is based on the Ganzfeld (German for 'total field') effect, which describes the tendency of our
central nervous system to invent patterns in random, uniform sensory data, for instance hearing voices in white
noise or seeing images in visual static.
In a Ganzfeld experiment, a test subject is exposed to such a continuous uniform stimulus field, while another
person attempts to send them telepathic messages. Using this premise as a starting point, this edition replicates
elements of this experiment in order to explore synaesthetic hallucinations. The electric violin’s signal acts as a
tool for gradually manipulating and transforming static noise in both the audio and visual domains.
Drawing influence from esoteric and occult numerology, Tony Conrad and Brion Gysin’s experiments with flicker
and the Dreamachine, and Terry Riley's ‘Persian Surgery Dervishes’, which fuses composition with improvisation in
a long-form ecstatic and trance-like work, Ganzfeld Experiment resides in a tradition of transcendental minimal-
ism.
From Erkki
“I’m always interested in how structure interacts with randomness, form with formlessness, and ways in which
sound can be used to transform a listener’s perception and sense of time and place. I’m also often looking for
ways to expand my musical ideas to other media, through ritual, installation, or visual elements. An important
motive in my work is the idea that through sound (and these other elements) we can enter different realms of
experience: the mystical, the magical, the shamanistic. In ‘Ganzfeld experiment’, as in many other of my works,
I’m particularly searching for an ecstatic experience, one that transports the audience outside of their rational,
everyday selves. The constantly panning white noise and visual flicker are intended to induce a hallucinatory
state where one’s sense of time and perception are disoriented, becoming prone to suggestibility by the repeti-
tive but subtly morphing sounds and images.”
ABOUT
Erkki Veltheim (b. 1976 Finland) is an Australian composer and performer. His practice spans noise, audiovisual
installation, improvisation, notated music, electroacoustic composition and multidisciplinary performance. He
has been commissioned by the Adelaide Festival, Vivid Festival, Australian Art Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Or-
chestra, Musica nova Helsinki, Punctum and Maison Folie, Mons, Belgium (for Mons 2015 European Capital of
Culture program), and his pieces have been performed by groups such as the London Sinfonietta, defunensem-
ble and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He composed orchestral works for celebrated indigenous musician Gur-
rumul's posthumous album 'Djarimirri' (2018), which debuted at No.1 on the Australian charts, and won 4 ARIA
Awards and the 2018 Australian Music Prize. He plays violin in the improvising trio North of North, with Anthony
Pateras (piano) and Scott Tinkler (trumpet), and has performed with musicians from a wide range of styles and
backgrounds, including Chris Abrahams, Bae Il Dong, Han Bennink, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Anthony Burr,
Cat Power, Brett Dean, Ensemble Modern, Robin Fox, London Sinfonietta, Jon Rose and Wadada Leo Smith. He
regularly collaborates with the artist Sabina Maselli on audiovisual performances, film works and installations.
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ERKKI VELTHEIM
GANZELD EXPERIMENT