L'Impero della Luce records textile machinery sounds at Fondazione Bonotto

The Italian experimental music duo L'Impero della Luce, founded in 2018 by sound organizer Johann Merrich and graphic designer eeviac, recorded electromagnetic sounds from industrial textile machinery at Bonotto spa in Molvena, Veneto, in September 2019. The resulting track, "Calcite, onyx, hawaii e tabacco," appears on their debut album "Il mare di Dirac" as its third movement. The duo used electromagnetic induction techniques to capture the "silent sound" of electrical circuits and magnetic fields, including sounds from looms, dryers, bobbins, and electrical panels. They also recorded works from the Bonotto collection, such as Nam June Paik's "Robot: the Baseball Player" (1989) and Joe Jones's "Mechanical Surmandal" (1978). The track lasts 9 minutes and contains only two sounds audible to the naked human ear: the roar of looms at the opening and the notes of Jones's harp halfway through. The collaboration exemplifies the intersection of entrepreneurship and artistic experimentation, with Bonotto—a textile company known for its Fluxus-related collection—supporting avant-garde research. The duo's name references both Magritte's painting series and the drive of electromagnetic fields, as they explored voltages from 30 to 300 hertz and industrial current at 380 volts.