Transmission / Three Norths  2021–2022 · one artwork presented under different titles

 

Three rocks of different ages and geological strata form the material centre of Transmission / Three Norths.

 

Suspended compass needles respond to the magnetic information retained within each stone, pointing in different directions rather than aligning with a single present-day north.

 

When volcanic rock forms and cools, magnetic minerals can preserve the direction and intensity of Earth’s magnetic field at that moment. The stones therefore carry records of geomagnetic conditions from widely separated periods. Their internal orientation does not necessarily correspond to the field that surrounds them now: magnetic north has shifted, and over geological time Earth’s poles have repeatedly reversed.

 

The work brings these immense temporal changes into an intimate encounter. A compass ordinarily promises reliable orientation, presenting north as stable and universal. Here, three needles produce three different norths. The apparent certainty of the navigational instrument gives way to a layered geological record in which direction is contingent and bodily orientation becomes provisional.

 

Presented initially as Transmission in 2021 and subsequently as Three Norths in 2022, the work belongs to Anna Rún’s wider investigation of invisible forces and the systems humans use to locate themselves. The stones are not passive carriers of metaphor: their physical properties generate the work’s divergent alignments. Geological matter functions as an archive, transmitting information that unsettles the fixed points through which place, time and position are ordinarily understood.