Ultravel

Our digital wireless communication fills the airwaves with text messages, images, videos and emoji’s. We write more than ever using technology and protocols that we can’t see, hear or feel.

This installation attempts to visualize the hidden world of wireless communication by breaking it down in its simplest form: words, encoded into sound, are received on the other end through a microphone and converted back into an image. Pixels are transferred to an audio axis and back to a visual axis.

This sound is transferred outside of the audible spectrum, using ultrasound frequencies. Visitors can control the installation using their smartphones and opt to hear the sound by pushing a button. In addition they can send their own messages over the air through their phone speaker.

Unlike modern digital protocols the system does not cancel out noise or interference, resulting in a gradually more distorted signal. Just like the "Chinese Whispers" game the text is relayed again and again until the original message is completely distorted. In this way the installation presents a poetic answer to the ephemerality of our digital communication.

Presented at the "Travelling Letters" exhibition in 2017 in Vilnius, Lithuania.