|
 |
|
-- Work in Progress --
Empire MHz (working title), 2009
During the summer of 2006, we were given a private tour of the 103rd floor of the Empire State Building (ESB). For many radio and television stations across the tri-state area, this is also the site where the inner-workings of their individual broadcast signals are housed and transmitted. Originating from this site, between the base of the antenna tower and the tip of the Mooring Mast, signals and electronic pulses resonate across urban space. The broadcast tower and its relationship to communication across a massive bio-geographic area, sets into play, a circuitry of information and the potentiality of disinformation.
Since the first broadcasts from this site in 1931, the ESB has not only served as an architectural wonder of Modernity, but also a very tall radio base station for low-tech to high-tech signal strengths. Signal strength and its reach is dependent upon the height of the antenna, and the vertical reach of the ESB made manifest a new means of mass communication.
It is this initial visit which triggered further interest into the production of a sound work and experimental installation focusing on the architecture and resonances of the ESB broadcast tower. To what degree can this architecture of transmission be articulated as a sound work that touches upon ideas of public space and the airwaves as a public domain? This is one question which guides our process as we build upon this work.
*This project is supported by Creative Capital