Hope as Very Low Frequency Practice (B Side): Listening as Longing to Be Undone

This chapter, the “B Side”, explores the Split Solstice project from a combination of different angles in order to consider what the notion of practice brings to the fore in relation to sound research in troubling times. The chapter opens by setting the scene and unfolding the context through which the Split Solstice project (created with Nik Forrest) emerged in order to grapple with questions related to sound research and the notion of hope. Through this inquiry, the chapter asks how we might approach hope in nonlinear ways that do not seek to define it in relationship to subjective projections and desired states of affairs but instead as a feeling that blurs the boundaries of the self through a partial undoing of intentionality. Expanding the inquiry through reflections on personal moments, or encounters, with very low frequency (VLF) radio signals, the chapter describes this feeling (somewhat paradoxically) as a type of longing for undoing. Focusing on two specific encounters, both of which involved the phenomenon of living trees as VLF antennas, the chapter unfolds a series of curiosities and questions about the global proliferation of radio signals, the materiality of sonic spectrums, and the hubris of assuming that nature and the cosmos are indifferent to our machinations in these spheres.