In Wild Signals (2007, 9:42 min), a video by Canadian artist Kevin Schmidt (1972), a concert stage is installed in the center of an uninhabited and snowy landscape. Suddenly, out of nowhere, music starts and colored light beams start flashing. It's the theme sound that was used to communicate with aliens in Spielberg's classic Close Encounter of The Third Kind' (1977). Spielberg was inspired by 19th century scientific sound and light research, like the musical language Solresol, created by Jean-François Sudré. His idea was a universal communication system based on tone. In Kevin Schmidt's video the static surrounding is curiously invaded by various tones, the colorful spots and artificial bursts of mist. Wild Signals is a lonely rave, an imagined place, a theatrical experience. It forms a barrier between the viewer and his surrounding, between an artificial technological relationship with nature on one hand and our individual (in)ability to cope with this. press release: exhibition "Wild Signals" at Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart 2008 (excerpt)