Radio Tapestry

Media: Sound Installation; Etched Zinc plates connected via copper thread, interfaced with a Raspberry Pi Computer Dimensions: 2.33m height x 1m width Radio Tapestry is an installation work, composed of photographic etchings of received radio transmissions on zinc plates. Used as antennae, each plate captures a fleeting moment in time, an intersection between electromagnetism, propagation, and human agency. Whether the recorded transmissions are intentional - music or communication - or unintentional – polluting electronic sources; security systems, transformers – the materiality of each plate offers an interface into an often-overlooked understanding of space, the Radio Frequency (RF) Landscape. A topographical conception of RF which emphasises that these ethereal interactions exist in parallel to the corporeal space we inhabit in our day-to-day lives. A duality of space that can be traced back to the plate’s relationality. Found both in the tangible, how the physical form is situated in space, and equally in the nontangible, how a transmission’s propagation can be affected by close and distant architectures. It is through these visual articulations of the RF Landscape one can begin to capture records of human impressions in a naturally occurring phenomenon. The literal act of hand etching each digital recording is employed to evoke a transference of energy akin to that of radio transmission. An electromagnetic transference that is inscribed back into the antenna that received it; a rendezvous of intervention and time. Each inscribed radio artefact is woven into the next via copper windings. An acknowledgement of the historic association with the textile process of warp and weft to radio’s interrelation between electricity and magnetism; each intersection being a point of received impression. This conductive continuity between plates allows each ‘stitch’ to become part of a larger fabric of antenna, in which every collated radio artefact serves part of a more substantial receiver.