A Translation is a book containing a solar solar-powered FM radio transmitter. Unlike a typical book, there is no text; however it receives electromagnetic radiation in the form of light and re-radiates that energy as radio, a shift in frequency of about 6 million times.
Protest Bar is a tool for electronic disobedience in wireless infrastructure space.
PROTEST_BAR enables the user to post single- or multi-line messages in the list of available networks present on mobile- and non-mobile devices. PROTEST_BAR transmits the messages in the SSIDs of non-existing wireless networks. PROTEST_BAR accomplishes this feat by crafting and transmitting custom beacon frames.
PROTEST_BAR workshops were presented to the public in 2019. The half-day workshop engaged participants in the construction of a tool for interventions into wireless infrastructure space. The workshop was open to all skill levels and interests and assumes no prior knowledge of networking, electronics or programming. Participants were introduced to the fundamentals of wireless networking and programed the device to create wireless access points, embedded web servers and custom packet injectors. The focus of these activities were to explore networks and imagine creative uses of the networking medium for activism and personal expression. Participants left with the devices they constructed.
View the project website here.
Radio is a natural resource that has been commandeered by our technological society for the purposes of communication. Despite the utopian visions of a radiophonic future called for by the avant-garde early in its history, radio's dominant use has been a one-to-many conveyance for entertainment and advertising. The internet, too, promises its utopia as the great equalizer, providing free access to information and communication. In either case, regulation, centralization of power and reliance on infrastructure can lead to control to the extent that oppressive regimes can filter and block content, and in the "free" world, the battles for privacy and for net neutrality are currently being waged.
The Wilderness Wireless is both a device and a workshop. The device is a solar-powered wireless web server built around a wifi-enabled microcontroller. The device creates its own wireless network and serves a website over the connection.
The workshop last appeared during The Critical Engineering Working Group's 2018 Summer intensives. Before that, it ran at NYC-based Radical Networks Conference for several years. The focus of the workshop is on the thinking around, creation of and use of off-the-grid, infrastructureless communications networks for creative use. The workshop gains its inspiration from the free-radio movements, exploring notions of decentralization, free-speech and activism and takes cues from nature about how to operate in a technologically-mediated world in a not-always-on, resource-conscious manner.
View the project website here.
Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of a Noosphere, or sphere of human consciousness, is being tested by The Global Consciousness Project, a parapsychology experiment begun in 1998 as an attempt to detect possible interactions of "global consciousness" with physical systems. The project monitors a geographically distributed network of hardware random number generators in a bid to identify anomalous outputs that correlate with widespread emotional responses to sets of world events, or periods of focused attention by large numbers of people.
Brett's Entropy Server (2016) is a self-contained hardware random number generator that uses a software defined radio as its source of entropy. The embedded linux system's entropy pool is fed by sampling the electromagnetic environment. The sampled entropy is not entirely random, as the local electromagnetic environment is awash in non-random signals. The device's screen shows the current, ever-changing contents of the entropy pool.
A portion of the entropy pool is copied to a text file at some regular interval, and this text file is served by an embedded web server accessible via a wireless hotspot that the device creates. Phone or computer users in the vicinity of the device can connect to the hotspot and download the text file containing the most recent sampling of local entropy. Statistical analysis of the entropy files should reveal a fingerprint of the local EM environment. Visit the project page here.
The Hearn Loops are a series of videos produced during a 2016 residency at Signal Culture in Owego, NY (now based in Loveland, Colorado). The videos were generated by the studio's Hearn Videolab, an analog video processor. Sections of the videos have been looped and are displayed on custom video players based on Raspberry Pi's. There are 30 loops in total, but only a few have been installed in players. Editions are available. Contact for details.
Tempest is a series of video experiments utilizing the analog video processing tools at Signal Culture in Owego, NY (now based in Loveland, Colorado). The project takes its name from the National Security Agency's specification referring to spying on information systems through leaking emanations, including unintentional radio or electrical signals, sounds, and vibrations. The videos were created through a process of broadcasting generated video to an analog television whose antenna was elongated and wrapped around the process equipment then mixed with the original signal. The videos are textured and largely still, exhibiting ghostly aparitions created by interference from the processing equipment.
.accordion-flush
class. This is the third item's accordion body. Nothing more exciting happening here in terms of
content,
but just filling up the space to make it look, at least at first glance, a bit more
representative of
how
this would look in a real-world application.
ISM is a sound and radio installation that exposes a vast expanse of radio space punctuated by machine communications. The installation consists of an antenna mast supporting three antennas, each of which is appropriate for reception in the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio bands. Each antenna is connected to a computer-controlled radio receiver, each of which is tuned to a particular frequency in those bands (920MHz, 434MHz and 315MHz). These frequencies are used by such devices as keyless car entry systems, wireless sensor networks and utility meter transmitters to name a few. A set of speakers diuse the sound of the demodulated signals into the audio space around the installation, creating a sound composition wholly determined by the stochastic arrangement of devices operating within receiving range.
Wolf imagines a wireless access point to be a home for the memory of an animal. After conversations with locals during a residency at ACRE (Artists' Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) in Steuben, WI, it was learned that a wolf was shot on the property. Since it seemed its presence was still felt, I created a solar-powered wireless access point that was installed on the grounds. Away from any other wireless signals, phones would connect to the access point and automatically display an image of a screen print of a wolf made on the residency.
Station Breaks is a series of three live, 13-minute broadcasts airing on ACRE-TV that draws attention to the continued presence of the analog broadcast TV channels despite the move away from analog television as a communications medium in 2009 and the proliferation of internet-based media. This project is not an attempt to memorialize or wax nostalgic about the days of analog TV, but to remind the public that these communication channels still do exist, whether or not they are actually being used. Each broadcast will be a live feed from a black-and-white analog TV receiver inside the artist’s studio. No content will be produced for or transmitted to this receiver, but rather the noise of the empty channels will serve as signal. Without the presence of a constructed signal, naturally-occurring and artificially-produced electromagnetic phenomena come to play in these clear channels, inviting variations in the visual and sonic fields of the receiver. The sum of the durations of each broadcast equal the average duration of program content present in an hour of prime-time programming.
Interferences is a series of four broadcasts that took place on each Friday in July 2013 as part of experimental radio station Radius’ Episode 41. Each broadcast features a geographic site in the Chicago area where some type of built interference to the landscape has or currently is taking place. The content of each broadcast consists of text, maps, photographs and drawings relating to the site. This content was encoded as sound using amateur radio digital modes. Each broadcast was made on frequencies occupied by licensed commercial stations in Chicago with the intent to interfere with them. Each interference creates a temporary zone within licensed Hertzian space where the site can assert / advertise elements of its past, present and future with the same voice as the mass media broadcasts that envelop it. For more information: Episode 41
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is a transmission work produced especially for Maximilian Goldfarb's Deep Cycle (2010). The piece takes its title from a text of the same name by Marshall Berman, a treatise on the modern world and how we may see ourselves within it. The piece replicates the process imagined in the title by composing a map consisting of 17 layers ranging from geological regions to social architectures to media networks. The map layers are then encoded to sound through a protocol for transmission of images over radio known as slow-scan television, or SSTV. The piece re-interprets the solid as air by encoding, transmitting, receiving and decoding the map. Through this process, the physical boundaries depicted on the map's layers become distorted through their interaction with the actual space they intend to represent.
These maps represent three areas of the United States predicted by Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener in 1967 to become megalopolises by the year 2000. These areas — Boswash, Chipitts and Sansan — are coastal regions whose boundaries are revealed here by the borders (and border-crossings) of US hertzian space.
See the entire series at Bill Rankin's radicalcartography.net
Colors show type of broadcast:
AM Radio 535—1705 kHz
FM Radio 88.0—108.0 MHz
Television 54—72 MHz 76—88 MHz 174—216 MHz 470—608 MHz 614—698 MHz
Data from the FCC and NOAA; broadcast bubbles current as of 2006—2007.
Inflorescence is a site-specific sound and radio installation that co-opts the FM airwaves to give a radiophonic voice to nature. Sculptural objects called 'florets' containing circuitry that measure environmental data such as light levels, temperature and air quality sonically interpret the measured data as insect-like calls. These sonic interpretations are broadcast over low-power FM throughout the site of the installation. Listeners tuned to the broadcast frequency of the florets can listen to environmental changes in real-time and can experience the sounds mixed with the local soundscape, providing a unique sonic experience that contributes to environmental awareness.
Invisible Cities is an immersive video installation with quadraphonic sound that imagines the sounds of Chicago take flight through the urban landscape, illuminating a ghostly architecture. The sounds are field recordings taken by the Chicago Phonographers. The installation was part of the Here Not There exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009.
Since the inception of radio as a broadcast medium, the earth has been covered by an increasingly dense network of airborne communications. AM/FM/SW and other portions of the radio spectrum can become a medium through which a re-imaging of space is possible. This hertzian space is not defined by surveyed boundaries or geographic constraints, but by field strengths, mass-media service areas and consumer markets. The overlapping spaces defined by these broadcasts can be collectively conceived as an envelope of thought around the world, or Noosphere. The project renders the trasmission-based sphere of human thought as an immersive sonic environment, providing a pansonic/panoptic environment of simultaneous broadcasts. The installation can then be thought of as a phrenologic observatory in which a real-time composition puts as many signals as possible into conversation within the space, allowing for a new characterization of the nature of our collective thoughts.
The tinderbox is a flexible, programmable transmission arts platform that is meant to be a tool for the creative use of the electromagnetic spectrum. Rather than being a closed device like so many consumer electronics with no possibility of hardware/software customization, the design is open, inviting the user to configure its operation to meet their specific needs. No detailed programming or electronics knowledge is necessary to get on the air. The tinderbox is essentially a programmable, digital FM transmitter that can cover the commercial broadcast band. The tinderbox features a 1/8in. stereo jack for two channel, line-level input from any analog source. Sporting 2mW of broadcast power, the tinderbox can transmit up to 30 feet or more with a proper antenna.
The tinderbox can be operated as a stand-alone transmitter or can be tethered to a computer via a USB connection. In stand-alone mode, power can be provided via a 7-12VDC adaptor (a 9V one is included) or via a 5V mini USB charger (such as for the iPhone). The tinderbox has a simple interface allowing the transmitter to be switched between on-air and standby modes. Tuning is accomplished through up and down buttons that increase or decrease the broadcast frequency in 200kHz increments, e.g., 103.9, 103.7, 103.5, etc. In tethered mode, all functions of the transmitter can be controlled by host software running on the computer. Sample code for popular programming environments such as Max/MSP, Pure Data and Processing will be available soon.
Although the tinderbox comes ready-to-transmit, it is possible to customize its operation to your specific needs. The tinderbox is built upon the freeduino, an open-source, Arduino-compatible physical computing platform that affords serial communications over USB and the ability to modify how it works via a programming interface. *The first edition of 20 will be released as signed and numbered series from Wave Farm
Placeholder content for this accordion, which is intended to demonstrate the
.accordion-flush
class. This is the third item's accordion body. Nothing more exciting happening here in
terms of
content,
but just filling up the space to make it look, at least at first glance, a bit more
representative of
how
this would look in a real-world application.
Scratch Track is a radio performance that took place in NYC during the Art in Odd Places festival in 2009. The performance features a pedestrian pulling a red wagon that has a specially-designed stylus that picks up and amplifies the texture of the street. The sound of the street is then broadcast on a popular FM radio station's frequency. Passers who are normally shielded from the sound of the street by their vehicles may hear it through their radio, interrupting their isolation from the urban soundscape.
Gnomon is a group of sound-producing bodies, whose form and resonance are determined by an audio feedback loop. The sound producing element in each body is a thin metal wire that contracts and relaxes in proportion to the amount of signal passing through it. This wire holds a bronze sheet in tension and is connected to the speaker terminals of an audio amplifier. The amplifier receives its input from a contact microphone placed on the sheet, and a magnet places under the wire makes it vibrate audibly when an audio signal is passed through the wire.
This system constitutes a feedback loop that dynamically determines the shape, motion and sound the bronze sheet produces. Environmental variations temperature, humidity, air currents and ambient sound serve to disrupt this stability, producing variations over time.
In Absentia is a site-specific installation where a clock radio in an abandoned building is revived by solar power. The radio receives broadcasts and interference, creating a shifting aural landscape as the power wells and fades due to passing clouds, weather and time of day. The radio is heard amongst the surrounding natural soundscape of insects, birds and passing traffic.
When Airwaves Swing is an interactive/reactive sound installation comprised of a Pathe-Marconi 653CC AM/MW/SW receiver and a long wire antenna. The antenna serves two purposes in this arrangement. It not only captures the radio signals, but it also diffuses the demodulated signal. This is accomplished by connecting the output of the radio to an audio amplifier that is connected to the ends of the antenna instead of a loudspeaker. A strong magnet is placed close to the antenna at one end. The current flowing through the antenna produces a magnetic field that interacts with that of the magnet. These magnetic interactions result in the physical vibration of the antenna. To aid in hearing these vibrations, contact mics are placed at the ends of the antenna, whose signals are subsequently amplified and diffused into the surrounding space.
The installation invites visitors to sit and manipulate the radio controls as one would do in a home setting. However, the resonance of the antenna and the surrounding space transforms the sound into something quite different from a normal radio broadcast.
Audion is a sound and light installation that consists of four relaxion oscillators build around Sylvania Strobotron neon discharge tubes. By themselves, the oscillators have a stable pitch in the low hundreds of hertz. Each oscillator is also equipped with a microphone, whose input can affect the oscillator's frequency and phase. When multiple oscillators are placed together, the oscillators influence each other, resulting in audible phase shifts.
The Alchymical Analyser is a relay-logic computer built from a scavenged telephone exchange. The analyser operates on the four alchymical material properties: hot, humid, cold and wet. A user may enter two material properties and operate on them, resulting in one of the four elements: fire, air, earth and water. The project is an exploration of computation and esotericism. The device is accompanied by a faux scientific paper describing its construction and operation. It can be viewed here