Tag Archives: Radio Art

“Pour Reception”: An Arduino-based radio that uses glasses of water as an interface

Image source: Yanko Design

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Korchin, who shares a link to this article on Yanko Design:

We’re all used to turning a couple of knobs and pressing a few buttons to operate a radio, but have you ever played with glasses of water to change a radio channel? Probably not. Designers Tore Knudsen, Simone Okholm Hansen, and Victor Permild recently launched their art project ‘Pour Reception’. And it’s beyond anything you can imagine. Pour Reception consists of two internal speakers, an AUX input, a handy guide and two glasses that must be placed on the body of the radio. And no the glasses aren’t just to sip water from, though you could do that. The radio uses the two glasses filled with water as it’s interface!

[…]Pour water into the glasses, and the stereo starts! Transfer some water from one glass to another and you can change channels. Touch the glasses, and you can fine-tune the radio’s signal, eliminating distortion. Finally, pop a finger into the water to control the volume or to bring the radio to a halt!

This might seem like a scenario from an alternate universe, but the tech behind it is pretty common. Objects emit micro amounts of electricity, and touch tends to disrupt this and convert it into a signal. By using Tact library by NANDstudio (an open-source Arduino shield that turns any object into a touch and proximity sensor), the designers converted the radio platform, glasses, and water into different layers of a capacitive interface, allowing them to conduct minute amounts of electricity and transforming them into sensors. Utilizing a Wekinator (an interactive machine learning tool), various gestures such as touching the glass or dipping a finger into the water were mapped into commands for controlling the radio. The end result; a radio with glasses of water functioning as a “digital material interface”.[…]

Click here to see a photo gallery and read the full article at Yanko Design.

Oh now that’s a fun way to combine radio and art! Obviously, this isn’t an RF radio–it either grabs streaming content or (more likely) uses pre-recorded content on an internal storage device. Still, I think it’s a creative little project and an ideal way to play with Arduino Tact library.

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Radio exhibit at the Tate Modern

Photo credit: Rebecca Crysdale

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who writes:

An old friend of mine just emailed me from London after seeing an extraordinary modern art exhibit at Tate Modern. The exhibit, according to my friend Rebecca Crysdale, “is about how we are being overload by communications, particularly digital communications.” She says, “It was a very thought provoking exhibit.”

Photo Credit: Rebecca Crysdale

[H]ere’s a link to Tate Modern’s web page for the exhibit. There appears to be lots of shortwave and other radios in these large sculptures, and SWLing Blog readers might enjoy trying to identify them. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/meireles-babel-t14041

Many thanks Ed and Rebecca for sharing! I just checked out the Tate Modern site–brilliant installations! I love the Tate Modern, but have never had the fortune of seeing a radio-centric exhibition. Amazing!

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Short Waves / Long Distance Repository

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Goren, who shares the following (via Facebook):

Short Waves / Long Distance Repository

The Short Waves / Long Distance Repository is now online. Comprised of selected works from submissions to the highly competitive open call Short Waves / Long Distance, these 38 works exploring the sonics of the shortwave radio spectrum (2-30 mHz), and the experience of long distance listening. The Repository features the following works:

a lagoon, considered against its archival image, Sally Ann McIntyre (Radio Cegeste)
All the News All the Time, Dafna Naphtali
an electrical discharge, a sea of burning oil slicks, Sally Ann McIntyre (Radio Cegeste)
Argent Discovery, Jed Miner
CODEX: Post-Human Speech Sounds, Tom Miller (a.k.a. Comrade Squelch)
Caller, Ed Osborn
Chasing Waterfalls, Sam Rowell
Crimean Snow, John Roach
Elegy for RCI, Lee Rosevere
Fringe Area, William Basinski
Fuzz, Ricardo Paraíso Silvestre
Ghostwave, Jacques Foschia
Hellschreiber, Acoustic Mirror
I listened to the buzzer for hours and nothing happened (edit), D.N.P vs Mutate
Körper, Antonio D’Amato
L’abolition de la Croix, Meira Asher
Let’s Absorb The Waves As We Hold On For Dear Life, Nicholas Knouf
Michael Sedore, ND2Q, Dominique Ferraton
Modulation I, Javier Suarez Quiros
Ondes Simultanee et Perturber, Patrick Harrop
Oracle, Edward Ruchalski
Orbital Lullaby, Craig Dongoski
Over the Horizon, Pietro Bonanno
öö and ää, Evangelos Makropoulos, Gosha Hniu, Victor Math, and Horace Prawn
Short Waves, So Beast
Shortwave Radio, South Africa, IV, Gregory Kramer
Shortwaves trip, Paolo Pastorino
Spectres of Shortwave: Falling Towers (excerpt), Amanda Dawn Christie
St Columb Major – transmission received, Mark Vernon
Staubrauschen (Dusty Noise / Media Dirt), Timo Kahlen
Strange Sonars, Linda Dusman & Alan Wonneberger
Stratocode from nowhere, Flaub
The Perfect Storm, Stephen Bradley
Three Steppes Forward Two Steppes Back, Jeff Gburek
through the shortwave, part one, Spasmodular sounds from Steve’s shortwave
TransSonic Awakenings in D, Douglas Hedwig

Click here to view the Short Waves / Long Distance Repository.

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eBay Find: BANG & OLUFSEN BEOMASTER 900-K

beomaster900-closeWhile quite out of my price range, this is a beautiful piece of radio art nevertheless. (I recommend viewing the close-ups on the listing to really see it.) The receiver/amplifier has Broadcast, Long Wave, Short Wave plus FM, and the ability to reproduce beautiful stereo for its time, according to user reports.These were produced during the mid-sixties until 1970. I miss the artwork involved in many older radios as compared to today’s utilitarian radios. We may have better components and features, but we do not have the beauty or style in many cases.

I’ll be watching with interest to see how this auction ends!

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

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Guy shares his nostalgia radio wallpaper for download

Hertzian Vision_2560x1440SWLing Post contributor, Guy Atkins, writes:

I’m writing to let you know of a “nostalgia radio” Windows wallpaper graphic I’ve made available to radio hobbyists. This design is called Hertzian Vision, and I created it three years ago for a few SDR enthusiasts/software authors in Finland. I’d like to offer it to your readers too.

My design was inspired by the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention in Bellingham, Washington, which opened initially as a showcase for antique radios.

Here is a link to a folder with two sizes of the wallpaper:

https://app.box.com/s/33qzg7ouo3sztzzbnd36ylytt1cp7u3y\

The two high resolution wallpaper files are 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1440 pixels.

This is a fantastic graphic you’ve created, Guy–many thanks for sharing it with us!

KMREOn a side note, Guy also informed me that the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention also operates a low power FM station, (KMRE) that features old time and classic radio shows. You can listen to KMRE online via TuneIn Radio or several other sources.

All morning, I’ve been listening to KMRE via my SStran AM transmitter though my BC-348-Q. Great fun!

[Update: if you have difficulty downloading the wallpaper via the link above, you can download them directly from the SWLing Post server by clicking here and here.]

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Radius – Shortwave inspired audio art

I have a particular fondness for artists who use shortwave radio to inspire their work, so you can imagine how pleased I was to stumble upon Radius–an experimental radio broadcast platform based in Chicago, IL, USA. In their own words:

Radius features a new project semi-monthly with statements by artists who use radio as a primary element in their work. Radius provides artists with live and experimental formats in radio programming.

The goal is to support work that engages the tonal and public spaces of the electromagnetic spectrum.

All audio works are broadcasted locally on 88.9 fm with a secondary stream online.

Radius’ website contains audio by episode. Most of this work is toward the art spectrum of the sonic journey–me, I love it.

Want a taste? Check out some of this audio from Episode 08 by Osvaldo Cibils:
Episode 08: Osvaldo Cibils by Radius #4
 

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