What do you do
when your body's in Peking but your heart's in Poughkeepsie?
Time: 8.17, 20:00 - late
Address: 13 Heizhima Hutong, Dongcheng District, Beijing
This rather metaphysical question, posed by Sony in it's 1980's advertisement for a radio receiver claims that radio does not merely cross borders, or Pacific oceans for that matter, but also inspires the hearts and minds of the listeners.
Bouncing off the ionosphere at night, radio waves can travel hundreds of kilometers. This, very physical property made radio an ideal tool to get one's message across. Traveling at the speed of light, these once mighty waves span across the globe, but fell silent in the wake of digital and satellite technologies, or did they?
Join us for a night of concentrated listening as part of a series of highly irregular events researching the peculiar radio broadcasts bouncing of the Beijing night sky into your living room.
During the evening you will be provided a typical consumer radio to explore the electromagnetic spectrum with. Together with our resident artist Dennis de Bel, we will discuss the discoveries made, find out how harmonious the frequency bands actually are and hopefully track down some of the more elusive broadcasts. Afterwards, you can take the radio home for further listening.
Participation is free, but please RSVP (limited places). You can reply to our wechat account or mail to us. Bring earphones, snacks and drinks welcome.
About Dennis De Bel
We are thrilled to introduce our new residency artist Dennis de Bel from Netherland, he will stay with us from mid July to next Jan.
Dennis de Bel (b. 1984, NL callsign: PD0WNED) works with software, electronics and various forms of waves. By hands-on practical research and workshops he attempts to decode the larger socio-economical narratives and realities embedded in our, often taken for granted, every-day devices. His work has been exhibited at Siggraph Los Angeles, Transmediale Berlin and hosted workshops in various collaborations at, for example, Isea Hong Kong, Radical Networks New York. He participated in the Relearn summer-schools and Libre Graphics Meetings besides being a guest tutor at the Design Academy Eindhoven and the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University of Applied Science. In 2017 he co-founded Varia, a Rotterdam based space for developing collective approaches to everyday technology. De Bel holds a MA from the Piet Zwart Institute and will be working at the Institute for Provocation in 2018.
During his six months residency, Dennis de Bel will engage with local communities to research the development of informal networks of production, low-end globalisation and communication. Through hands-on research, assuming different roles and embedded collaborative practices he endeavours to formulate a more nuanced view on China's development from factory of the world to world power, beyond the usual Silicon Valley analogies. As point of departure he proposes to approach these developments from an infrastructural point of view. More specifically, the shared histories and futures of internet and radio technologies and their potential to create webs of control as well as peripheral manoeuvres that slip the net. Engaging with specific communities; radio amateurs, electronics (repair) industries, he aims to unravel some of the socio-economical realities of the spectrum.
2014, Feline File-sharing - portable filesharing mesh network device for mammals, in collaboration with Roel Roscam Abbing
2013, Lofi Phone - working morse key from reverse engineered iPhone
2010, Copyright 2009, in collaboration with JODI
2014, Fiber Noodle Networking - noodle cooking experiments
2014, Smoke Messaging Service - iPhone case that allows for sending smoke signals
