Scott Benzel
Outer Gateways
2026
2-channel sound
1:50:00 (on loop)

Outer Gateways (2026) by Scott Benzel is a 2-channel sound work unfolding as a continuous 1:50:00 loop, weaving together archival recordings, experimental music, EVP phenomena, and esoteric sonic artifacts into a liminal auditory environment. Drawing on sources that span early spirit communication experiments to late 20th-century electronic composition, the piece constructs a threshold space where signal and noise, presence and absence, and human and non-human voices blur.

Structured in three movements, Logaeth, Vrihl, and Daäth, the composition layers fragments from artists such as Eliane Radigue, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and György Ligeti alongside recordings attributed to Konstantīns Raudive and materials from Okkulte Stimmen Mediale Musik and The Conet Project. These elements are interwoven with contemporary sound works and field recordings, producing a dense sonic topology shaped by interference, resonance, and transmission.

The work’s title evokes both metaphysical portals and technological thresholds, positioning listening as an act of tuning into unstable frequencies—between worlds, histories, and states of perception.

Outer Gateways

I. Logaeth

ELpH – Zwölf
Eliane Radigue – Kyema
Konstantīns Raudive – from Radio Stimme Microphone Stimme
Okkulte Stimmen Mediale Musik – (Recordings of Unseen Intelligences 1905–2007)1520–13 Trance-Reden und “Direkte Stimme”(Trance Speech and “Direct Voice”)
ELpH – Philm 1 vox, Philm
Okkulte Stimmen Mediale Musik – Rita Goold as “Russell”Recorded in Leicester, England, 18 November 1983
The Body – Coils of Kaa
Okkulte Stimmen Mediale Musik – Jack Sutton Contacts Dead Airmen
Konstantīns Raudive – from Breakthrough 7”
Ian Wellman – Mercury Vapor Lights
Bernard Parmegiani – Riposte
Okkulte Stimmen Mediale Musik – The Enfield Poltergeist (Voices from Possessed Children)
Desmond Leslie – Saturn-Chronos, The Death of Satan
The Conet Project – Gong StationChimes, Drone B, Odd Clacking
Okkulte Stimmen Mediale Musik – Einspielung Nummer 29 Recorded by Friedrich JürgensonParanormale Stimme durchs Telefon: “Du Verbrecherin gehörst verscharrt!” Recorded in Germany, 1999
The Gateway Project – 4Hz Theta Waves, Adeki
The Conet Project – Magnetic Fields, Deep Nuclear
Ian Wellman – 5G Antenna
Fletina – Network of Pipes
White Sun – Gong for Wealth
Lawrence Pike – Orpheus in the Underworld
David Tudor, Gordon Mumma – Rainforest 1

II. Vrihl

Field Recording, Bees
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Interstellar
Desmond Leslie, Esoteric Tone Poem, Flies
Lee Reynaldo, DJ Spooky, Lee’s Raudive Mix
Eleh, Death is Eternal Bliss
Barbara Mcbeath, Brendan Cook, MITD EVPs
Gyorgi Ligeti, Lux Aeterna
Wilburn Burchette, Psychic Meditation Music
Arsène Souffriau, Bubbles
Walter Wegmüller, from Tarot Raudive diodes
Okkulte Stimmung Mediale Musik, Theodor Spoerri, Ekstatisch Pathetische Kunstsprache Bei Chronischem Paranoid, Rhythmisch Gegliedert, Mit Strophisch Geordneten, Vokalreichen Lautkombinationen: Ecstatically Emotive Emotive Artificial Language In A Chronic Paranoid
Alessandro Cortini, Paragioia Oscilloscope drawing of Raymond Roussel’s Cosmic Star Spirits of LaGrange whisper EVPs
Konstantīns Raudive, from Radio Stimme Microphone Stimme Raudive diodes (clicking, distortion)

III. Daäth

The Gateway Tapes, from Wave 3, side 1
Raymond Cass, Uppsala Sun Countess
Leif Elggren, Somnambulism ABBA Soaking in His Presence Vol 9
SCSM whisper EVPs

Scott Benzel is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles. His work has been shown or performed at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum Of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, The Palm Springs Art Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Mt. Wilson Observatory, Pasadena, CA, and REDCAT, Los Angeles, and was featured in Made in LA 2012 at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include The Horse, Dublin, Bel Ami, Los Angeles, Maccarone, New York, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, Shanaynay, Paris, Public Fiction, Los Angeles, Human Resources, Los Angeles, and Mandrake, Los Angeles. Benzel has curated exhibitions at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture (Schindler House and Mackey House), Los Angeles, Los Angeles. Contemporary Archive, and Welcome Inn, Eagle Rock, CA, as part of Pacific Standard Time organized by The Getty Museum, among others. Scott Benzel is a member of the faculty at California Institute of the Arts.