Signal to noise: a live interface based on analog radio interference

“Signal to Noise” is a sound installation using radio transmissions and mobile radio receivers as an interface for audience-based performance. Carrying radio receivers, the audience moves through the space created by two overlapping radio transmissions that broadcast on the same frequency, creating a volatile acoustic space of radio interference that changes with each motion of every participant. The result is an embodied and interactive creation of a soundscape which is shaped by the unpredictability of interference and noise in analog radio. The installation deals with the battleground of ideological discourses, broadcasting archived radio programs of the Cold War era. Listeners move through the space in which transmissions from the East and West jam and disrupt each other and with every motion enact an ever-changing soundscape. The resulting choreography technologically reenacts the “fight over hearts and minds” at the border between East and West, recalling the technological and ideological mechanisms used during the Cold War, where Western propaganda radio was jammed by Eastern authorities.