By composer Casper Hernández Cordes

My contribution to the Gravel Art 7 exhibition in Sorø is a series of small electroacoustic sound sculptures that I call Strømvæsener (Current Beings). These are small, autonomous electronic organisms that try to capture the essence of the participating artists’ thoughts and works. While my previous projects for Gravel Art explored how humans can communicate with mushrooms and trees, this time I have turned my attention to a very special species in the gravel pit: the artist.

Just like any other living organism, the Current Beings are driven by electrical current. They react autonomously to their surroundings—whether it is light, touch, or a pencil drawing on paper. I have built them using simple electronic components: resistors, capacitors, transistors, and more. Instead of a computer as their “central nervous system,” they use CMOS chips, which are found in most digital equipment. However, I use them in a “wrong” way: where they are designed to perform small calculations in a digital setup, I hack them to produce analog sound.

This is a deliberately primitive approach. Working with hacked digital chips has shown me how liberating it is to force digital technology to behave analogously. Sitting with a soldering iron and making these gadgets creak, shout, and talk to one another gives me a liberating sense of control. I can see and hear what is happening inside the circuits, providing a counterbalance to the helplessness that comes when more and more of what controls our lives is hidden away inside opaque, black boxes.

Methodologically, the Current Beings grew out of a series of conversations with the exhibiting artists. This process was an eye-opener; in an art world often characterized by competition and commercial concerns, the community around Gravel Art features a rare curiosity and openness. The collaboration is marked by a strong sense of community, which I have tried to materialize in the Current Beings.

When the Current Beings interact with each other and the viewer, they stage a unique artistic ecosystem that sprouts here in the gravel pit. They are works in their own right, but at the same time, they are an attempt to give a voice to what moves within the artists—an invitation to step into this living, responsive community.

Performance, 15/8 2026

• Clarinet: Casper Hernández Cordes
• Electronics: Thomas Meldgaard Kristensen

• Preludio
• Algebobler (Mette Brehm)
  Mette’s work is about—and encapsulates—algae. I wanted to make a comment that brings the core of algal activity, photosynthesis, into play. Therefore, this Current Being makes bubbling sounds, like the oxygen produced by algae. It also reacts to light, so you can change the bubbles by holding your hand over it at different heights.
• Interludio
• La résistance graphique (Hartmut Stockter)
  Hartmut’s work is about drawing, so I made a Current Being like a sheet of paper where you can ‘draw’ the sound. Graphite acts as an electrical resistance, and when you draw on the paper, the resistance in the circuits changes, and different soundscapes unfold.
• Interludio
• What this World needs is a good 2 $ broom (Marianne Hesselbjerg)
  After talking with Marianne, I was reminded of Captain Beefheart’s song, “The Buggy Boogie Woogie,” which talks about how the world needs a good, cheap broom. Marianne’s tool spheres tumble around in the landscape in their own shuffled, smashing rhythm.
• Interludio
• Splintringer (Aske Sigurd Kraul)
  Aske’s description of his work made me think of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen and the idea of a mirror held up to the sky and shattered. I kept this in mind when composing this Current Being, which is the sound of splintering mirror glass.
• Interludio
• Infinite loop of you (Heine Skjerning)
  This was the title of Heine’s work in 2025. I was inspired by Heine’s thoughts on identity, the you-I relation, and consciousness for this Current Being. Here, you are trapped in an endless loop when you touch the two identical sets of copper strips.
• Interloopio
• À parte (Thomas Lindvig)
  This Current Being is not like the others. It is in a world of its own, apart, different, lonely. The sound from the Current Being goes via a transducer into a cardboard box, and from there, via a contact microphone, out of the strangely large speaker. A completely different mode of being.
• Interludio
• Stereoverlap (Regitze Engelsborg Karlsen & Freja Niemann Lundrup)
  This is about friendship. It is a double Current Being, a Siamese twin. It is fast-reacting, conversing, expressive—and of course in stereo. You operate this Current Being with three fingers, like a trumpet.
• Postludio

Thanks for the support from the Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond).

Sorø, August 14, 2026. Casper Hernández Cordes