Sounds from the Electrified Human Body: Reconfigurations of Embodied and Encultured Knowledge from the development of Electrosomatophones

Abstract

Until the twentieth century, fundamental discoveries of electricity were experienced and articulated by integrating the living and dead flesh of human and other animal bodies into electrical circuits. Examples of this include Watsons flying boy capacitors, Galvani's frog motors, Franklins batteries, Volta's pile, Pages' inductors, Meuccis telephone and Grays musical telegraph. Public demonstrations of electrified bodies were largely abandoned in the early 1900s as electrical engineering professionalized, power levels increased, electrocutions terrified, and doctors prohibited. The production of electrosomatophones, musical instruments that incorporate electricity in human bodies for sound production, was not slowed by the establishment of this taboo against direct human contact with the electrical fire, but the taboo did induce a significant change in practice: a shift away from direct current flows through bodies to electrical field modulations of the bodyas typified by the Theremin of 1920 and musical instrument apps that use the touch screens of todays mobile telephones. Visceral experience of electricity is attenuated by this move to very low currents and electric field interactions. The resulting mystification profoundly reconfigured and conditioned embodied and encultured knowledge of electricity. These changes will be critically examined by surveying the practice and discourse of the last 300 years of electrosomatophone development including the Denis dor of Vclav Prokop Divi in 1748, Grays devices of the late 1800s, Theremin in the early 1900s, Eremeeff, Trautwein, Lertes, Heller in the 1930s, Le Caine in the 1950s, Michel Waisvisz and Don Buchla in the 1960s, Salvatori Martirano and the Circuit Benders in the 1970s, and Smule Inc. in this decade.

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UC Irvine
Recent Work
Title
Sounds from the Electrified Human Body: Reconfigurations of Embodied and Encultured
Knowledge from the Development of Electrosomatophones
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9p66b2bj
Author
Freed, Adrian
Publication Date
2018-01-08
Peer reviewed
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University of California


Sounds from the Electrified Human Body: Reconfigurations of Embodied and
Encultured Knowledge from the Development of Electrosomatophones!
Proceedings of"A Body of Knowledge - Embodied Cognition and the Arts"conference
CTSA UCI 8-10 Dec 2016
Adrian Freed

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INTRODUCTION
In 1932 Ivan I. Eremeeff introduced the “Gnome”, an organ with stainless-steel keys
that sends electrical oscillations for each pitch through the performer’s fingers to be mixed in their
body and exit via a conduction plate in the bench and amplified, filtered and projected from a
loudspeaker (Roads).
The “Gnome” exemplifies musical instruments that will be classified here as
“electrosomatophones” - instruments that involve electrical interactions with human and other
fleshy bodies. Electrosomatophones developed over the last 300 years include the Denis d’or of
Václav Prokop Diviš in 1748, Gray’s devices of the late 1800’s, Theremin in the early 1900’s,
Eremeeff, Trautwein and Lertes in the 1930’s, Le Caine in the 1950’s, Michel Waisvisz and Don
Buchla in the 1960’s, Salvatori Martirano and the Circuit Benders in the 1970’s, this authors
Fingerphone and the mobile phone “apps” of Smule Inc. in this decade.

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The academic study of electrosomatophones is in its infancy so this preliminary paper
points future scholars to the traces of objects of interest and introduces productive questions these
instruments provoke for several related communities of interest.
DEFINITION
This definition of electrosomatophone affords useful flexibilities in our object of study:
Electrosomatophone: sounding assemblage involving electrical
charge and fleshy bodies.
This definition affords the inclusion of touch-screen, mobile telephones that produce
key-click sounds when their screens are tapped thereby exposing the double skeuomorphism of a
visually-simulated typewriter keyboard and typewriter key-click sound. The musicality of sounds
produced this way and the instrumentality of the assemblage cannot be assessed with the device
itself. These are aspects of a larger context involving questions of performance and perceived
performance. Mobile telephones are designed specifically to maximize the number of contexts
they may be used in, so starting out with a broad definition of electrosomatophone invites
concurrent perspectives from multiple fields including: sound studies, critical musicology,
auditory display, and user experience design.

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Figure 2 Physiological Music
“Physiological Music” depicted in Figure 2 provides us with an interesting edge case
for our electrosomatophone definition. The electrical currents flowing through the dancers are
modulated by the grooves of a gramophone record by way of a carbon microphone and an
amplifying and isolating transformer. We might reasonably exclude this scenario from our term
on the basis that no vibrations are produced acoustically so no sound–as it is usually defined–is
involved. However, we have to be careful examining the historical trace not to overlook
electrosomatophones when contemporary notions of what constitutes an acoustic transducer are
absent from the trace. A significant example of this is Elisha Gray’s patent from which the
illustration of Figure 4 is taken.
In January 1874, Elisha Gray discovered his nephew amusing himself by taking electric
shocks from one of his induction-coil interruptors and transducing sounds into a bathtub.

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Figure 3: Elisha Gray’s musical bath (Hounshell 1975)
This discovery precipitated refinements that included substituting the bathtub for a
violin body with a conductive plate attached, and the filing and eventual issuing of a patent (GRAY
1875). Gray saw the discovery as having value in sending music across the telegraph network and
in solving the problem of sending more messages down existing telegraph wires.
Figure 4: Incorporated Telecommunications. (GRAY 1875)

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The following extract from Gray’s patent hints at the extent to which fleshy
components were an ordinary element of electrical engineering at the end of nineteenth century.
“These characteristics are found in the skin of the human body; in leather moistened
with acidulated water, in animal flesh covered with a membraneous coating; in bacon-rind in
pork-skin, especially pieces taken from the ear or tail; in kid gloves; and in other substances which
need not be enumerated, as they do not operate so perfectly as those above given”
Gray 1875
INSTRUMENT BUILDERS
The definition of electrosomatophone I propose is intended to invite contemporary
musical instrument and sounding object builders to explore, appropriate and acknowledge the long
trace of components and praxis they employ. Paul Demarinis is a notable example of a
contemporary artists who already does this as exemplified by his work “Gray Matter,” a creative
recrudescence of Elisha Gray’s fleshy transducer experiments.
FLESHY BEGINNINGS
Human and animal bodies were always part of electrical circuit exploration from the
beginning of the systematic development of circuits in the 17th century. Fundamental discoveries
of electricity were produced, articulated and attested by integrating the living and dead flesh of
human and other animal bodies into circuits. Examples of this include Watson’s flying boy
capacitors and switches, Galvani's frog motors, Franklin’s batteries, Volta's pile, Pages' inductors,
Meucci’s telephone and the aforementioned musical telegraph of Gray.

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The image of Figure 5 represents two storyboards for scenes in electrical shows
performed throughout Europe and North America in the mid 1700’s (Watson 1748).
Figure 5: Storyboarding Shows of Electrical Wonder (Watson 1748)
The kinetic energy of the wheel (B) is transferred to the spinning amber or glass sphere
where it is transformed into electrical potential energy (charge) by the process of rubbing the
sphere with a material such as wool or silk (C). The charge is collected and stored on the “primary
conductor” (E) that is supported on silk or other nonconductive bands above the ground. When
the glass of spirits is brought close enough to the sword a circuit is complete allowing electrical
charge to flow through the sword, the body of the swordsman, through a small region of the air
(the spark gap) through the liquid, the tray and the tray holder’s body to the ground. The tray H
contains an insulating material preventing the current from flowing through the swordsman’s feet
directly to ground. The climax of this particular scene is that the alcohol bursts into flame.

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Above this sword scene is a variant where the alcohol is replaced by a pile of chaff.
The moment of wonder in this scene is when the chaff rises towards the lady as charge is dispersed
across it because of the electric field between the conductive plates F and D.
The two storyboards involve different actors and a different staging but the basic story
is the same in all of them: energy is transformed from mechanical to electrical, stored and then on
cue, transformed to sound, heat, motion and/or light.
Among the 35 scenes Ebenezer Kinnersley advertised in a broadsheet for one of his
famous electrical shows (Delbourgo 2006), 15 are scenarios with people or animals in the circuits.
Often living beings are in danger – always a crowd pleaser.
Volta’s first-person accounts of electrically-induced sensation are grounded in kinetic
and kinaesthetic descriptions of phenomena experienced during interactions with his galvanic pile
and water.

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Figure 6. Volta experiencing his pile (Hallé 1801)
“To obtain such slight shocks from this apparatus which I have described, and which
is still too small for great effects, it is necessary that the fingers, with which the two extremities
are to be touched at the same time, should be dipped in water, so that the skin, which otherwise is
not a good conductor, may be well moistened. To succeed with more certainty, and receive
stronger shocks, a communication must be made, by means of a metallic plate sufficiently large,
or a large metallic wire, between the bottom of the column (that is to say, the lower piece of metal,)
and water contained in a bason or large cup, in which one, two, or three fingers, or the whole
hand is to be immersed, while you touch the top or upper extremity (the uppermost or one of the
uppermost plates of the column) with the clean extremity of another metallic plate held in the other
hand, which must be very moist, and embrace a large surface of the plate held very fast. By
proceeding in this manner, I can obtain a small pricking or slight shock in one or two articulations
of a finger immersed in the water of the bason, by touching, with the plate grasped in the other
hand, the fourth or even third pair of metallic pieces. By touching then the fifth, the sixth, and the
red in succession till I come to the last, which forms the head of the column, it is curious to observe
how the shocks gradually increase in force. But this force is such, that I receive from a column
formed of twenty pairs of pieces (not more) (shocks which affect the whole finger with considerable
pain if it be immersed alone in the water of the bason; which extend (without pain) as far as the
wrist, and even to the elbow, if the whole hand, or the greater part of it, be immersed and are felt
also in the wrist of the other hand.”
(Volta 1800), page 292
This account illustrates an important difference between a frog’s leg and the
experimenter as measuring instruments for electricity. The frog’s response was so sensitive that it

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could be triggered by atmospheric electricity. It was really only useful as a detector. Volta’s
account describes the use of the body for a relative continuous measurement that also included a
detection threshold (pain). Volta elaborates on this describing how the bodily instrument can be
adjusted to make it more sensitive:
“Recurring to the sensation of pain which is felt in the experiments above described, I
must add, that if this pain be very strong and pricking in the parts covered by the skin, it is much
more so in those where the skin has been taken off— in recent wounds for example. If by chance
there should be a small incision or bit of the skin rubbed off in the finger which I immerse in the
water that communicates with one of the extremities of the electro-motive apparatus, I experience
there a pain so acute, when, by establishing the proper communication with the other extremity, I
complete the circle, that I must soon desist from the experiment; that is to say, must withdraw my
finger, or interrupt the circle in some other manner. I will say more; that I cannot even endure it
above a few seconds when the part of the apparatus which. I put in play, or the whole apparatus,
contains only twenty pair of plates, or about that number.”
(Volta 1800), page 304
The new scenes of wonder Volta promises involve a breathtakingly broad assault on
the senses as well as use of electricity to interrogate the body. Some of these sorts of experiments
had been reported with electrostatic power sources but Volta’s instructions quoted below provided
comparatively safer scenarios.
Taste
“In regard to the sense of taste, I had before discovered, and published in these first
memoirs, where I found myself obliged to combat the pretended animal electricity of Galvani, and
to declare it an external electricity moved by the mutual contact of metals of different kinds,—I

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had discovered, I say, in consequence of this power which I ascribed to metals, that two pieces of
these different metals, and particularly one of silver and one of zinc, applied in a proper manner,
excited at the tip of the tongue very sensible sensations of taste; that the taste was decidedly acid,
if, the tip of the tongue being turned towards the zinc,…
“if I advance the tip of my tongue gradually, that, when it has arrived within a very
small distance of the metal, the electric fluid (I would almost say spark), overcoming this interval
darts forwards to strike it”
(Volta 1800), page 305
Sight
“I was surprised to find that, with 10, 20, 30 pairs, and more, the flash produced neither
appeared longer and more extended, nor much brighter than with one pair. It is true, however,
that this sensation of weak and transient light, is excited by such an apparatus much easier and in
different ways. To succeed, indeed, with one pair, the following are almost the only methods; viz.
that one of the metallic pieces should be applied to the ball of the eye, or the eye-lid well moistened,
and that it would be made to touch the other metal applied to the other eye, or held in the mouth,
which produces a flash much more beautiful; or, that this second metallic piece should be held in
the moistened hand and then brought into contact with the former; or, in the last place, that these
two plates should he applied to certain parts of the inside of the mouth, making them communicate
with each other.”
(Volta 1800), page 30
“But the most curious of all these experiments is, to hold the metallic plate between the
lips, and in contact with the tip of the tongue; since, when you afterwards complete the circle in
the proper manner, you excite at once, if the apparatus be sufficiently large and in good order,

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and the electric current sufficiently strong and in good order, a sensation of light in the eyes, a
convulsion in the lips, and even in the tongue, and a painful prick at the tip of it, followed by a
sensation of taste.”
(Volta 1800), page 308
Hearing
“I introduced, a considerable way into both ears, two probes or metallic rods with their
ends rounded, and I made them to communicate immediately with both extremities of the
apparatus. At the moment when the circle was thus completed I received a shock in the head, and
some moments after (the communication continuing without any interruption) I began to hear a
sound, or rather noise, in the ears, which I cannot well define: it was a kind of crackling with
shocks, as if some paste or tenacious matter had been boiling. This noise continued incessantly,
and without increasing, all the time that the circle was complete, &c. The disagreeable sensation,
and which I apprehended might be dangerous, of the shock in the brain, prevented me from
repeating this experiment.”
(Volta 1800), page 308
To adherents of embodied cognition Volta’s accounts are delightfully free of
preconceived notions of what electricity “is” or claims of where it might be situated as a given in
the world. In his time there were many semblant manifestations of electricity produced by such
diverse means (combining dissimilar metals, probing animal tissue, holding electric eels, spinning
glass wheels, tapping lightning with kites etc.) that knowledge of electricity at that time is better
described as distributed and shared descriptions of commonly experienced phenomena rather than
a stable, compact, abstract conceptualization.

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The Voltaic pile rapidly eclipsed the Leyden jar and prime conductor, providing
experimenters, medical practitioners and demonstrators with an electrical source of higher energy
levels available for sustained periods of time - days instead of the thousands of a second
electrostatic sources of energy provided. This resulted in a small but significant shift in practice in
the staging of electrical activity. With electrostatic machines climactic moments were controlled
by closing a circuit. At the moment the circuit was reopened was of minor importance because the
energy stored in the prime conductor was lost so quickly. With a continuous source of current from
voltaic piles the breaking of the circuit now had to be carefully scripted. One scenario Volta
describes is the use of pain as the signal of when to break the circuit.
Repeating this scenario represents a bodily inscription of the electrical relaxation
oscillator invented by Andreas Gordon (Gordon 1745) and known as Franklin’s bells. The
relaxation oscillator scenario is replayed with electromagnetic props with the electric bell, some
kinds of interruptors, the tremblor and electrotome, then in the twentieth century with neons and
thyratrons in early electronic organs, and audions in radio transmitters and receivers.
CRISES
The wonder of many electrical demonstrations stemmed from the precision of the
location of the electrically induced “crisis” an aspect carefully carried into the rhetoric (Adams,
Jones, and Birch 1799) and practice of medical electricity and supported by instrument builders
(Nairne 1787). This crisis model endured at least until 1932 as we can see from the electric bath
of figure 7 where we are told that:
“an artificial fever is created by passage of current through the solution in which the
patient rests his hands feet”

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(1932)
Figure 7: Electric Bath (1932)
Further examples of how widespread practice of bodily circuit integration was to
electrical experimenters can be found in Page’s “History of Induction” (Page 1867), a valuable
source on electrical laboratory practice in the early 19th century. His reason to write a history was
to establish the precedence of his own contributions over other pretenders in Europe. This required
a painstaking (and probably self-serving) chronology with verifiable prior publications and
quotations. The following extracts from early pages of this book show that by the 1830’s both
Voltaic piles and bodily measurements of electricity were routine among many notable

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experimenters. Note that these experimenters had the resources to own expensive measuring
devices that they used concurrently with the body:
Paraphrasing a report by Faraday of work in 1831:
"slight spark by using charcoal points"
"convulse frog's leg”
"slight sensation upon the tongue"
(Page 1867, page 5
Faraday:
"I could obtain no evidence by the tongue, by spark or by heating of fine wire
or charcoal, nor could I obtain any chemical effects" the current was indicated only by the
galvanometer and its magnetic effects",
(Page 1867, page 6
William Jenkins to Faraday:
"if the wire which surrounds an electro-magnet be used, a shock is felt each
time the contact with the electromoter is broken, provided the ends of the wire be grasped,
one in each hand"
(Page 1867, page 8
Henry in1835:
"with a large colorometer of eight pairs, shocks were felt as far as the elbow"
(Page 1867, page 8
Dr Neef in1835:

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"Novel and important physiological effects due the rapid succession of small
shocks. It was contemplated by Dr. Neef for use for medical purposes"
(Page 1867, page 9
Of Dr. Neef in 1839 inventing the:
“automatic circuit breaker, suggested the use of galvanic baths now so much in
vogue.
(Page 1867, Page 9
Figure 8: Electric Wonder Bath (Baille and Armstrong 1872), page 207

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PROHIBITIONS
Public demonstrations of electrified bodies were largely abandoned in the early 1900’s
as electrical engineering professionalized, electrical power levels increased, electrocutions
terrified, and doctors prohibited.
Figure 9: Never Touch (Anonymous 1917) page 22
While industries, governments and professions did devise and mandate ways to discourage
the public’s direct contact with electricity, they were not successful at restricting the circulation of
knowledge and materials or discouraging a vibrant “amateur” community of transgressive
experimentalists. The names have changed: hobbyist, enthusiasts, bricoleurs, boffins, hackers etc.
Exploring the way these sub-cultures define themselves and are seen by non-members is a valuable
study in itself. The big challenge for historical perspective for this work is identifying a trace of
the actual activities of adherants. One useful source to consider are the publications developed to
appeal specifically to these communities. In the USA, Gernsback’s many publications are a good
starting point. For example, in Gernsback’s 1938 publication: “Educational Library No 6: How to

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have Fun with Radio,” 4 out of the fourteen projects proposed involved electrified bodies. The
cover illustration, the “Talking Gloves,” depicts two men holding wires from a radio set and
communicating sound to a woman by holding their free, gloved hands to the woman’s ears.
Figure 9: Gernsback’s Booklet.

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The challenge to keeping this situation “fun” for all involved is to avoid the flow of
electricity between the participants. The idea is to use bodies to move the charge to the point in
the circuit where mechanical motion can produce sounds. As Gernsback puts it:
“The radio set of today often has quite a bit of power in the output stage. You are and
your assistant are therefor advised not to touch each other and not to touch the subject with
anything other than the leather of the gloves.”
(page 4).
These transgressive, dangerous aspects were presumably appealing to Gernsback’s
readers as themes of trickery, surprise and danger pervade the descriptions of the “fun” projects in
this booklet. Comparable transgressive narratives appear for Michel Waisvisz’s influential
cracklebox electrosomatophone:
“Sometime in the early-sixties I started touching the inside of my father’s short-wave
radio receivers. Before that with my brother René I had given 'concerts' at home by placing our
fingers on circuit boards of transistor radios that were 'wrongly', but usefully, interconnected with
wires. The little electrical shocks were nice and the changes in the sound were exciting and magic
mind-openers. Through touch I was able to start playing with short wave sounds in a way that
would later become 'sound music'.”
2004 http://www.crackle.org/CrackleBox.htm
There is a remarkable congruence between this account and accounts of the Denis d’or
of the mid 18th century which produced electrical shocks for the player and used electrostatically
charged iron strings. Unfortunately, we have of no trace of the Denis d’or or a detailed account of
its operating principles. Enthusiasts of speculative “reconstructions” of old instruments could
usefully explore whether the timbre or decay rates of iron strings of that era can be modulated by

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storing charge on them and whether controlled discharges of electricity on the strings is a workable
alternative to plucking or hammering them.
The development of electrosomatophones, was not slowed by the establishment of
prohibitions against direct human contact with the “electrical fire”, but prohibitions and taboos
induced a change in engineering practice: a movement from direct current flows through bodies to
electrical field modulations of the body–as typified by the Theremin of 1920 and the musical
instrument “apps” that use the touch screens of today’s mobile telephones. Visceral experience of
electricity is attenuated by this move to very low currents and electric field interactions.
Figure 10: Theremin Ensemble

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Figure 11: Theremin’s Terpsitone
CONCLUSION
Cultural uptake of electrosomatophones has generally been poor, and yet musical
“apps” available on billions of cell phones suggests that the latest electrosomatophones will have
very strong uptake. The most well-known instrument in the category, the Theremin, while
emblematic of electronic musical instruments is relatively rarely played. Accounting for these
apparent contradictions requires careful exploration of the context in which the instruments were
invented, innovated and received. A crucial pivot for these explorations is the long and ongoing
struggle to understand and organize knowledge of electricity itself.

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