John Wild

The Conduit
Performance
2007

By John Wild

The Conduit is a performative contribution to John Wild's ongoing research project: - Invisible Geographies 50MHz-6000MHz

Over recent years there has been an explosion in the use of mobile and wireless communication devices that make use of microwave signals between 50MHz-6000MHz, such as mobile phones, Wireless LANs, General Positioning Systems, Bluetooth devices, etc. Both rural and urban spaces have been overlaid with an invisible geography of microwave communications. As you walk the city you will pass through a whole array of text messages, emails and phone conversations. ‘Invisible Geographies 50MHz-6000MHz’ is an exploration of this new terrain.

The Conduit performance makes use of industrial microwave meters to make audible this invisible field of communications. Although occasionally, talking broadcast by some taxis, police, or TV transmitters can be heard within this range of frequencies the majority of transmission picked up by the microwave meter have, like the story of Babel, been transformed into an alien sounding, unrecognizable language; the digital language of the computer. The microwave meter is attached to a megaphone, a symbol both of repression and resistance, so that these foreign electronic voices can be broadcast. The effect of every day conversations being transformed into and rebroadcast as digital babble is to create a sense of paranoid otherness.

The performance has overtones of US Christian evangelism, and references 1950’s science fiction films through its lo-fi pseudo–scientific aesthetic. Many of the Science fiction films of this era portrayed the human race as victimized and at the mercy of mysterious and hostile forces. The threat of nuclear war, communist invasion and the McCarthyite witch hunts had combined to create a climate of suspicion, anxiety, and paranoia of anything ‘other’ – themes that have again reemerged and seem strangely contemporary in the current geo-political climate.

The Conduit has been performed live at a number of events including Open Ear :: Network, East End Collaborations 6 and the Sonic Arts Expo - Portsmouth.