Aerials (2022)

A commission from Electromagnetic Field

Wherever we go, our electronic devices are silently broadcasting their presence, searching for other devices, and exchanging information, leaving an invisible trail of signals that hint at our identity and past locations. Aerials (2022) translates these electromagnetic traces into an audible and visible form, depicting the fluctuating Wi-Fi and Bluetooth transmissions of nearby devices as interlocking elements of an ever-changing musical composition.

Each of the three aerials decodes and portrays a different kind of signal: Bluetooth advertisement packets, Wi-Fi 802.11 probe frames, and raw analogue Wi-Fi carrier strengths provided by 802.11 channel state information. Together, they create a multifaceted portrait of the digital interactions that we unwittingly partipipate in each day.