Delicate Instruments - CAMP Research Residency

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Delicate Instruments (work in progress) | 2023

My CAMP Research Residency with Megan Calver is now concluded, but the ‘Delicate Instruments’ work we conceived while supported by them (and our insightful critical friend Kate Paxman) continues.

The two-month residency proved to be an invaluable and intense period of collaborative research and making, and also gave us the opportunity to share our findings with the public in the extraordinary surroundings of the historic Devon & Exeter Institution.

We used our time to explore the work of Alec Harley Reeves (1902 -1971). Reeves was a brilliant engineer, who also conducted experiments to test psychical phenomena. By reconstructing some of those experiments, we’ve been seeking new ways to connect with the more-than-human.

We began our research process thinking about Reeves’ pioneering work in digital communications and how he had applied his engineer’s rigour to “mechanising the process of mediumship” as his colleague Richard Epworth put it.  As a radio and telecommunications engineer, Reeves spent his professional life attempting to extract signals from unwanted ‘noise’, and his digital innovations were one way of achieving this. However, when it came to the paranormal, Reeves seemed to be attempting to deliberately generate random ‘noise’, assuming that ‘spirit’ would be able to influence it and that, when properly translated, it would convey meaningful messages. Reflecting contemporary developments in science and technology, these experiments involved everything from Geiger counters to cathode ray tubes.

As new work evolves from this residency, we’re hoping to take our discoveries about Reeves back out into the landscape and to tune in to the ‘noise’ emanating from the more-than-human.

This work was supported by the CAMP Research Residency. CAMP is a member-led support and professional development network for artists, arts producers, curators and arts writers in Devon and Cornwall www.camp-membership.org