In 1973, the Federal Electrical Commission in Mexico City was involved in the production of a television program for Canal 4 (Channel 4) designed to highlight Nikola Tesla’s sound experiments with turbines and wireless resonant electric circuits. This initiative was named “Visible Sound.” Ultimately, due to concerns regarding low viewership, the decision was made not to air the show. Since then, it has been classified as “Lost Media,” archived within annals of the now-defunct Canal 4 in Mexico City. During the sound experiments, members of the Commission employed early synthesizers and circuit boards to capture and manipulate the vibrations produced by these devices.

Fast forward to 2024, Telekinett successfully obtained these important recordings, which had been preserved on magnetic tape by a former employee who had worked on their optimization and mastering (Mr. “________________” wishes to remain anonymous.)  These recordings have since been creatively repurposed by Mauricio Reyes and Carl Michael von Hausswolff, resulting in an impressive project titled “VISIBLE SOUND: Nikola Tesla’s Mattergy.”

XHTV holds the distinction of being the inaugural television station in Mexico and served as a foundational element of Telesistema Mexicano, which evolved into Televisa in 1973.

In 1949, Romulo O’Farril was awarded the concession for XHTV, which was allocated to Televisora de México S.A., a company owned by Novedades, O’Farril’s established newspaper. The station began receiving its equipment in March 1950, culminating with the arrival of a mobile studio in July of the same year.

Mr. “________________” served as a sound engineer at Channel 4 in Mexico City in 1973, where he was tasked with capturing, mixing, and reproducing sound through electronic audio equipment. His expertise spanned a wide range of applications, including music, television, film, and various other media platforms.

As a principal audio engineer, he had the chance to operate in various settings and engage with a wide range of artists and clients.

Carl Michael von Hausswolff
Composer and visual artist

Mauricio Reyes
Producer, Composer, and Futurist

In 1990, CM von Hausswolff, while on a tour in the United States with Karkowski/ Bilting, PHAUSS, and The Hafler Trio, visited Dale Travous’ CCD2 Laboratory located in the basement of the Kalberer Hotel Supply building in Seattle. Travous, who had a keen interest in the scientific and artistic contributions of Nikola Tesla, had constructed a large Tesla coil in his laboratory. During this visit, CM von Hausswolff recorded a demonstration of the coil, and the resulting sound was incorporated into PHAUSS’ composition, “Nothing But The Truth,” which was released on compact disc in 1991 by the Anckarström label in Gothenburg, Sweden, and later re-released in 2022 by Room40 in Brisbane, Australia. This meeting with Travous also led to a collaboration involving The Hafler Trio/PHAUSS and Annie Sprinkle, aimed at advocating for NATO’s withdrawal from Iceland. The project utilized two Megavolt Tesla Transmitters, which included four Hewlett Packard function generators, a laser modulator, a shortwave receiver, and metal runes, culminating in a video and a series of photographs taken by Arthur S. Aubry. The sounds produced by these Tesla coils have been integrated into this production.

CCD2 LAB TESLA COIL

CCD2 LAB TESLA COIL

A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit developed by visionary inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891. Engineered to generate high-voltage, low-current, high-frequency alternating current (AC) electricity, the Tesla coil marked a radical departure from conventional electrical systems of its time. It typically consists of two or more coupled resonant circuits, carefully tuned to transfer energy through resonance—a principle Tesla exploited to investigate the very boundaries of electromagnetic phenomena.

Tesla’s experimentation with these circuits laid the foundation for a multitude of innovations, ranging from electrical lighting and wireless power transmission to phosphorescence, X-ray generation, electrotherapy, and high-frequency acoustics. These explorations also led him into increasingly speculative and metaphysical territory. Among his more enigmatic endeavors was an obscure series of experiments now sometimes referred to as investigations into Reasoning Noise.

This line of inquiry—largely overlooked in mainstream historical accounts—sought to probe the energetic patterns underlying human thought. Tesla speculated that the brain’s electromagnetic activity might be translatable into coherent signal patterns, or “reasoning noise,” that could be rendered audibly or through modulated frequencies. By amplifying and interpreting subtle electrical emissions from the human nervous system, Tesla imagined a future where thoughts could be sonified—transformed into tonal structures or even synthetic language via high-frequency modulation.

While no complete records of these experiments survive, fragments from Tesla’s notes suggest that he constructed sensitive coil configurations intended to detect what he called “neuro-electric harmonics.” These devices, akin to biofeedback mechanisms, attempted to synchronize with cerebral oscillations and transduce them into structured noise—abstract sound textures not unlike chaotic radio signals, yet imbued with an uncanny semblance of intention or cognition.

Commercially, Tesla coils found use in early spark-gap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy, remaining in use through the 1920s. They were also incorporated into medical devices such as electrotherapy instruments and violet ray machines, exploiting their high-frequency output for therapeutic (if questionable) effects. In the modern era, Tesla coils are primarily employed for educational demonstrations and spectacular entertainment displays involving visible arcs and corona discharges. However, smaller versions still see practical use in industrial applications, such as leak detection in high-vacuum systems.

Originally, Tesla’s designs utilized mechanical spark gaps—either fixed or rotary—to periodically excite the resonant circuits. Today, modern Tesla coils leverage solid-state electronics to achieve more precise control over switching frequencies and pulse timing, ushering the century-old invention into new territories of experimentation, including artistic, neurological, and sonic domains.