Abstract

This exhibition will present findings from Project Sky Cube: an experimental three-dimensional recording of the electromagnetic wave spectrum in a one kilometre cube of air above Lincolnshire. Air is the invisible carrier of microbial life-forms, gases, chemicals, pollens and particulates. Recent studies have found that plants and insects share complex airborne chemical messages making it an ancient means of communication [1]. Human computer interactions generate similar complex communications through air, as satellites, radio, television, radar, wifi, and cellphones broadcast wave vibrations through walls and skeletons.

This project draws on the sociological writing of Gabriel Tarde, who conceived air as a social assemblage: a space of vibrations and flows that generate affective atmospheres at macro and micro levels, rejecting established ideas of dualism like nature/culture and organic/technological. These interactions often pass without conscious thought, as the human sleep walks through life mesmerized and contaminated by their social environment. As technological networks and biological experience merge, social and cultural network communications become increasingly inseparable and exploitable [2].

This installation places the audience within a cube of air in the vicinity of RAF Digby, a GCHQ intelligence gathering station which specialises in electronic communication surveillance. The cube was mapped by flying a microlight aircraft through three levels of air while using electromagnetic modulation equipment to record audio traces. Using mobile phone technology and projected images the exhibition highlights the complexity and vulnerability of our communications, audibly puncturing our perception of a 'natural' air space.