The Twelve | Sound of Electricity DeCew 1

This is the sound of electricity being made at DeCew Generating Station 1. The sound was recorded on an H2n mounted on a monopod as I walked from one end of the power house to the other, then opened a door to outside. The file is unaltered and in real time as I walk by the beautiful old machinery on a thick concrete floor built from on site river rock. DeCew 1 is the oldest continually running hydroelectric generating station in Canada, built in 1898 and one of the first uses in the world of Nikola Tesla’s polyphase current. The water source is a man-made reservoir fed by the Welland Canal at the top of the Niagara Escarpment, Lake Gibson, and the discharge is The Twelve Mile Creek that opens to Lake Ontario. This recording was made thanks to the Ontario Power Generation employee who preferred to be anonymous and was used in the audio program for the installation, Streaming Twelve, exhibited at Rodman Hall Art Centre.