Unravelling Frequencies

Unravelling Frequencies is a work cycle dedicated to the exploration of infrasonic frequencies below 20 Hz that cannot be heard but can be physically felt. Generated by storms, earthquakes, or eruptions, these waves can trigger unease, fight-or-flight responses, and even ‘haunting’ sensations. Drawing on scientific experiments conducted at the EPFL that artificially induced haunting experiences, I create infrasonic interventions to revisit historic sites through a feminist lens. By recording seismic sounds at places tied to women’s unresolved histories, I collect myths, anecdotes, and scientific texts into an archive-in-progress. The findings unfold in installations and websites, where infrasound becomes the narrating voice of forgotten protagonists, allowing us to re-examine their ‘haunted’ histories from a contemporary perspective.

Splatter conjures the spirits of victims of Switzerland’s witch trials and connects their persecution to the belief in the toxic power of menstrual blood. Switzerland was among the first European countries to prosecute witches and played a significant role in the creation of the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches, which served as a guide for identifying and prosecuting those accused of witchcraft. Predominantly female victims faced persecution across the country; rural areas, mountain villages, and cities of all language regions were affected. Today, this history is largely forgotten because these victims' names were removed from burocratic records, their bodies burned, their ashes dispersed, and their families forced to disavowe them. Most traces they ever lived were eliminated, erased. How do we remember those whose names have been lost to history?

In search of their traces, I travel Switzerland to visit locations linked to the persecution of witches. The resulting archive is composed of three elements: an Infrasonic Soundscape, the sculptural series Archaeology of Impurity and this website, which features visual materials, interviews with historians, scientists, and local experts, and the documentation of an auto-experiment.

The Infrasonic Soundscape consists of field recordings capturing the silent echoes of sites where the blood of those accused of witchcraft was shed, including torture chambers, execution sites, and prison cells. With each visit to a site, I collect new infrasonic audio recordings, which add more layers to the soundscape. Specialized speakers subtly transmit low-frequency sound waves that conjure the spectral presences of these women into the exhibition space.

Left: Full moon over the site possibly used for the execution and burrying of alleged witches in Poschiavo. Only its approximate location is known today.
Infrasonic Soundscape, extract

(1) Latex sculpture with an encapsulated replica of Guglia, the needle used in interrogations to identify the presence of the devil in an accused woman's blood
(2) Dungeon wall. where individuals accused of witchcraft were suspended by their previously broken arms, Pretorio Vicosoprano
(3) Soil at the execution pillars of Vicosoprano
(4) Today's recreational area Le Guintzet, where more than 300 women accused of witchcraft were burned alive, Fribourg
(5) Tour des Sorcières, where those accused of witchcraft were imprisoned and tortured, Sion
(6) Torture pillar, used to identify the stigma diabolicum, Château de Chillon. Most women did not survive the procedure, even in the rare cases they were found innocent.
(7) Vinyard, Arlesheim, where two women allegedly celebrated the witches sabbath with the devil. They were imprisoned in Basel's Spalentor and later executed.
(8) View from the postern, where executions took place, Château de Chillon
(9) One of the vials containing my 'menotoxic' blood, later used in Archaeology of Impurity

Index

Introduction
This page, scroll right ⭢

The Torturer's Needle, your Devil's Mark
Daniele Papacella, Historian and Journalist

Malleus Maleficarum Helveticarum
Prof. Dr. Claudia Opitz-Belakhal,
Emerita for Medieval and Early Modern History

Witch Purge in Vicosoprano
Renata Giovanoli-Semadeni,
Oral History Guide of Bregaglia Valley

Menotoxic Tulips
A Self-Experiment

Paranormal Beliefs, Menotoxins and Witches
Peter Brugger,
Professor of Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry

The Science of Sanguineous Flows
Dr. Andrea Gloor, Immunologist

Central to the identification of alleged witches was the stigma diabolicum, or devil’s mark. The installation includes a reproduction of the instrument once used to locate this mark. I spoke with the historians Daniele Papacella, Prof. Claudia Opitz-Belakhal, the neuroscientist Prof. Peter Brugger, and Dr. Gloor, an immunologist, in an attempt to understand what happened during this process.

The Swiss Alpine village of Vicosoprano in the Bregaglia Valley is one of the few places where remains of witch trial infrastructure persist. In the nearby woods stand the Execution Pillars of Vicosoprano, the site where women accused of witchcraft were executed. I spoke to oral history guide Renata Giovanoli-Semadeni to learn more about this dark chapter of Bregaglia Valley's history.

In 1920, the immunologist Dr. Schick provided the first scientific "proof" that Paracelsus was correct regarding the toxicity of menstrual blood. To challenge this assumption, I recreated Dr. Schick's experiment using my own 'menotoxic' blood, and addressed the subject of 'Menotoxin' in the conversations with Prof. Claudia Opitz-Belakhal, Prof. Peter Brugger, and Dr. Andrea Gloor.

„...von Excrementen die sie Menstruum heissen / dem kein Gifft auff Erden gleichen mag / schädlicher vnd strenger (...) da nichts schädlichers innen ist / als diß Excrement der Frawen.“

*„...from excrements which they call menstruum / which no poison on earth can resemble / more harmful and more severe (...) since there is nothing more harmful / than this blood excrement of women.“

Opus Paramirum, Liber quartus de Matrice, 1531.
Paracelsus, physician and philosopher

„...daß das Gift im Blute zirkuliert, ist also sichergestellt (...) Diese Tatsache ist deswegen interessant, weil wir damit rechnen müssen, daß das Gift in alle Organe gelangen kann; interessanterweise wird es dann mit dem Schweiße in der Haut ausgeschieden.“*

*„...it is therefore confirmed that the poison circulates in the blood (...) This fact is interesting because we have to assume that the poison can get into all organs; Interestingly enough, it is then excreted with sweat through the skin.“

Das Menstruationsgift, Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 1920.
Prof. Dr. Béla Schick, Immunologist

Archaeology of Impurity

This series draws on a range of organic substances linked to the longstanding myth that women’s blood is noxious and impure. This belief, rooted in traditional lore, found support in the writings of the Swiss Renaissance physician Paracelsus and remained the subject of scientific speculation, though never verified, until the early 1980s. The idea of menstrual blood as poisonous described it as a gas that spread through the female body during menstruation, a toxin thought to be transferable through touch. Liquid latex contains the same supposed toxic element and therefore serves as an apt material for preserving organic matter associated with the notion of female impurity. These materials include blood taken from my arm during menstruation, along with plants and soils collected from Swiss sites where people accused of witchcraft were executed. The installation’s subdued illumination, combining ultraviolet and natural light, draws attention to the persistence of superstition within these historically toxic beliefs.