signals of you [2025]

Photography by Sven Sleur

description

Our environment is not only made up of physical structures, such as buildings and roads, but also of invisible data streams from our mobile phones, electric bicycles or smart household appliances. Each place has its own digital texture, a rhythmic noise of wireless communication.

Who designs these networks? How exactly do they work and why do they work that way? How do they influence our movements, choices and freedoms? And how can we take matters into our own hands, not only as users, but as co-builders of the technological landscape? To understand how these systems work, we first need to make them visible.

Each of the 79 panels within this installation represents a specific channel within the Bluetooth spectrum with which these devices exchange information with each other. Every time information comes in, the panel in question gets a push. Not only from your smartphone, but also from your earphones, smartwatch or electric bicycle, for example. The busier it is, the more panels start to turn. This way you suddenly see the amount of invisible information around you. You can't help but wonder, what information exactly am I sharing here, and with whom?

_Signals of you_ was commissioned by Noorderlicht and Kunstpunt as part of the Noorderlicht Biennale 2025.

radioscapes symposium

Photography by Sven Sleur

background // bluetooth research

building process