The land beyond the land beyond

Artist Charles Stankievech has produced a marvellous 35-mm film installation focused on the Canadian signals intelligence station at CFS Alert called The Soniferous Æther of the Land Beyond the Land Beyond.

Wired magazine has a nice explanation of the project here. I can't agree with Brook's description of the station as "declassified" -- Stankievech was almost certainly told not to photograph the station's antenna arrays, and the security folks certainly didn't let him inside the station's (now largely remotely operated) operations spaces -- but it was quite an accomplishment on Stankievech's part to get permission to document the station at all.

Discussions of the project in Art-speak can be found here and here. (I wonder if CSE has anyone who can translate those texts into English.)

All kidding aside, as an avid explorer of the sub rosa world of intelligence outposts and a Visual Arts graduate from the University of Western Ontario, I really like this work. I wish I'd had the chance to see the piece in person.