Experimental Shortwave Radio by Ben Snell :: Supported by FRFAF (#2016-14)

The air around us is brimming with activity, yet most of it goes completely unnoticed. We tune into a small sliver of the radio spectrum—a swath of real estate in not space but frequency—when we listen to our car radio. However, the vast expanse of territory that airwaves occupy is claimed by governments and commercial entities for private communications.

In the "Wild West" of the spectrum, a section called Shortwave Radio boasts a landscape potholed with mysterious broadcasts. Relics of the Cold War Era, these “Number Stations” transmit unbreakable codes across the globe in the form of tones, beeps, and prerecorded voices. No one has ever been able to crack where they come from or what they communicate.

Intrigued, I set out to make tangible this Hertzian space of Shortwave Radio. The result is an artifact that lets individuals tune into the ever-present “ether” around us, discovering for themselves its strange and wonderful phenomena.

Many thanks to Mark Baskinger, Golan Levin, Zachary Schwemler, Eli Kessler, Dakotah Konicek and Daniel Campos.

Made in part with funds from the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art @ the Frontier.