Occulture

Our guest this time around is Dr. Kristen Gallerneaux, an artist, curator and sonic researcher with a Ph.D. in Art Practice & Media History, an MA in Folklore and an MFA in Art. She is also the Curator of Communication and Information Technology at The Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan, where she continues to build upon one of the largest historical technology collections in North America. But it is Kristen’s recent book High Static, Dead Lines that forms the basis for our conversation. This book has been described as “a literary mixtape that explores the entwined boundaries between sound, material culture, landscape and esoteric belief.” The book contains essays and fictocritical interludes are arranged to evoke a network of ley lines for the “sonic spectre” to travel through—a hypothetical presence that manifests itself as an invisible layer of noise alongside the conventional histories of technological artifacts. And the connective thread is the recurring presence of sound charting the contentious