Six people, wearing hard hats and treading carefully, are led into the basement of the Hill Street Masonic Lodge. Dr Kounadea, in a neat tweed skirt suit and sensible shoes, explains that we are about to enter some ancient tunnels, wherein was found the Radiometric Analyser Mark 4. There are concentric circles etched into the metal disc atop the wooden box with knobs on: perhaps, says the Dr, they are ancient signs?
So begins our visit to the Ethometric Museum, a dark and atmospheric space in which to encounter these wonderful machines, devised to generate ‘a system of harmonically resonant sound and electromagnetic waves that can generate “goodwill” among the recipient organism.’
They do this, if operated by a trained practitioner, by retuning our super-electrical fields and realigning the body’s electrical flow, thus counteracting the overwhelming and often negative proliferation of radio and microwaves with which our minds are daily bombarded.
It might sound a bit heavy going, but this is a delightful conceit, explained with deadpan but genuine excitement by the Doctor who steps aside to allow Professor Ray Lee to enter. Slowly and meticulously his white gloved hands twiddle knobs, adjust frequencies and volume, spin metal balls on rotating wheels and build an aural and visual world for us to explore at our own pace. Personal favourites are the Etherlux Magnifier Mark 3, with its booming background sound and theremin operated by his magnified hand, and a device that creates the effect of subatomic particles whizzing round and jumping over his fingers. An exquisite palette of sounds is created in this echoing chamber.
There is a backstory of company takeovers (the first being set up in 1765), a fire in Dalston which destroyed many valuable pieces, and the establishment of the World Ethometric Association to present these remaining wonderful machines to the world.
The curated tour finishes with large, spinning discs which have a richer sound and an undercurrent of something that sounds a little bit like voices, indistinct and otherworldly, but connecting us through their ‘arete’ (virtue) creating ‘eunoia’ (goodwill).
Less grandstanding than the Professor’s previous installation, Siren, this is a winning combination of a theatrical device, sound, vision and proper science.