Created and developed by Magnus Hansen
Magnus Hansen is a sound designer whose work explores the intersection of art, politics, and human vulnerability. Through Atomic Echoes, he translates the global tension surrounding nuclear weapons into an artistic soundscape – a reminder of the urgent need to understand how prepared, or unprepared, humans are in the face of such destructive power. His work invites reflection on both the fragility and responsibility that define our shared existence.
Atomic Echoes seeks to make this abstraction tangible – to give the audience a small glimpse of the experience of a nuclear explosion. The installation unfolds in three phases: before, during, and after the explosion. Sound moves from what can be heard to what can be felt – from the ear to the body, from perception to vibration.
The work employs a specially developed loudspeaker capable of reaching as low as 13 Hz – frequencies no longer perceived as sound, but as physical motion. Together with a vibrating floor, the space becomes an auditory Ganzfeld – a field where the senses lose orientation, and listening shifts into the body.
“..it took us into those really extreme places”
– Peter Rice
“These sounds make you understand how hard it is for a human being to face this cruel world and its ugly reality.”
– Ahmed Kilany
Vibrations in the air, traveling as waves that push and pull the space around us thousands of times per second. At 440 Hz, the air moves back and forth four hundred and forty times every second – a vibration our ears translate into what we call the note A. But when these waves slow down – below about 20 times per second – they slip beneath the threshold of hearing. The air still moves, but our ears no longer register it. Instead, our bodies do. The chest, the skin, the organs – all begin to sense what the ears cannot.
At these low frequencies, sound stops being an event in the air and becomes a physical presence. Pressure rather than tone. Weight rather than melody.
Low frequencies can trigger tiny shifts in blood pressure, balance, and breath – the same physical responses our ancestors relied on to sense danger before it could be seen or heard.
