Listen to the sound art project based on a secretive Soviet drilling experiment

Hidden deep within the Arctic Circle, the Soviet Union’s SG-3 deep drill project had a single goal: to journey deeper into the Earth’s crust than ever before.

The research project ultimately reached depths of more than 12,200 metres, but work ground to a halt as the communist regime collapsed.

The work had always been shrouded in secrecy, largely due to the vast amounts of high-tech equipment involved. Leaked tapes, however, later revealed that acoustic experiments were among the tens of tests carried out close to the borehole. The sounds sparked the imagination of Moscow-based artist Dmitry Morozov, otherwise known as ::vtol::.

He began buying samples of rock taken from the borehole. He also visited the site on the Kola Peninsula back in 2016, where he found a punched tape used to store data on early computers.

Morozov combined both elements to create the 12262 multimedia installation. The homemade machine uses the tape to control a series of five different drills. When activated, this drills begin to create holes by biting into the borehole samples. The noises are then amplified, processed, and become a base for a piece of experimental sound art.

To read more on project, visit ::vtol::‘s site here.