On Zero Crossing

Although the ancient Greeks knew the earth is round, it took another two thousand years for this knowledge to be generally accessible. Since then, the effort of crossing large distances, formerly costing weeks, later hours (or at least enormous telephone bills), has shrunk to a couple of mouse-clicks. In this way the earth’s spherical shape, recognized with initial difficulty, has now lost its relevance. Our digital experience of the “globalised” world has moved away from the physical feel of the “globe as such”.

When 1999 gave way to 2000 I documented a physical rounding of the earth. The journey, from 23 November 1999 till 11 February 2000 (80 days as it happens), led from and back to Cologne straddling a great circle via London, Dublin, New York, Montreal, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tahiti, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Bali, Bangkok and Calcutta. To experience the time change in a special way, I flew on 1 January 2000 eastwards over the dateline back into 1999 in Tahiti, where I celebrated the New Year a second time.

Each and every day of the trip I made a digital sound recording at the same stellar time (a stellar day, corresponding to the real rotation period of the earth as seen against the stars, lasts 23 hours and 56 minutes). The subject was usually chosen in the place I was in at short notice. The resulting 10 hours of sound material were edited and put together for Cologne’s WDR radio to form a 40-minute composition reflecting the above rounding of the globe.

The title Zero Crossing (a standard term in acoustics) refers both to a sound wave crossing its mean position as well as the crossing of time-space thresholds such as the Meridian of Greenwich (once), the Equator (twice), the Dateline (three times) and last but not least Midnight between 1999 and 2000 (twice). This four-channel piece gives the listener the impression of seamlessly gliding through time and space.