Excerpt documentation of 'SCATTER!' from the AV Festival 2008 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K.

The SCATTER! structure is based on the filing of the U.S. Patent# 2,292,387 in a typical act of civilian-military-civilian conversion, a method often used by the SCATTER! team. The patent was granted to George Anthiel and Hedy Keisler Markey (popularly known as Hedy Lamarr - the Austrian born American actress).

The avant-garde composer, George Antheil, a son of German immigrants and a neighbor of Lamarr, is known primarily for his 'Ballet Mechanique' which utilized automated instruments. Together, Lamarr and Anthiel submitted the idea of a 'Secret Communications System' in June 1941. On the 11th of August, 1942, the patent was granted to them. The system they described was an early version of frequency hopping that used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies with the original intent to make U.S. radio guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam.

The idea was impractical at the time however, and not feasible due to the state of mechanical technology in 1942. It was not implemented in the U.S. until 1962, when it was used by the U.S. military ships during the blockade of of Cuba, and after the patent expired. Neither Lamarr or Antheil, profited from the patent, which was little known until, in 1997 when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr and award for this contribution.

Lamarr's and Antheil's frequency hopping idea serves as a basis for spread spectrum communication technology used today in commonplace devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi internet connects and CDMA.

During SCATTER! 88 frequency zones are be mapped in real-time structured together with a 15 year archive of HF digital and analog signals, VHF, UHF and microwave transmissions that have been collected all over the globe. A special radio amateur call sign - GB8AV was established for the event for transmission purposes.

The SCATTER! team for this performance was:
Aljosa Abrahamsberg (AKA Nullo)
Matthew Biederman (AKA DelRay)
Marko Peljhan (AKA MX)
Brian Springer

with the very special guest
Glen Thompson

commissioned by the AV Festival 2008
supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
In collaboration with BALTIC

and special thanks to:
David Coxson
the BALTIC Team
the AV Festival Team
the Waygood Amateur Radio Club