Broadcast

As Kronstadt was one of the sites where wireless communication was first created, with Alexander Popov's radio transmission, we made

“HOMAGE TO POPOV” (Radio Art)

When Alexander Popov made the first radio broadcast in Kronstadt in 1895, followed soon after by Marconi and others, he could have had no idea that his efforts to create a system to rescue ships in distress would usher in a totally new era of media culture that would affect the entire world in a very short time.

“Homage to Popov” pays tribute to the scientist who inaugurated this era of media culture. Popov’s invention was designed not for commercial but for humanitarian purposes: to rescue ships in danger.

The project is made up of audio montages from field recordings of material collected in Kronstadt and St Petersburg – conversations, explanations, old recordings found in the flea market, the metro and taxibus, ships passing, and so on. These sounds were collected over four weeks and then mixed by the artists.

The work is exhibited via a mini “pirate radio” station, streaming the files via a PC to an assortment of radios tuned to the same FM station.