Slow Connection

This site-specific exhibition investigated the invisible infrastructure and frequencies of telecommunications in post-internet San Francisco and probed the ecological entanglements and physical absurdities of life in the digital age. The gallery space appears to be a portal to another reality but is firmly rooted in this one, revealing a hidden world that exists around us at all times. Through the mapping of complex systems, the artists sought to visualize that invisibility within a technological present. Out of a month-long collaborative residency, the artists’ explorations developed as an emergent multi-media installation that imagined other perspectives and possible futures of the Network.

Kelley O’Leary spent time at Pallas for one month investigating the networks of communication that exist and have existed within the space and its surrounding geography, including deep below the ground and directly above in the sky. Her practice of collecting and archiving artifacts of the present day from the perspective of an archeologist of the future centers a method of defamiliarization to that which is both intentionally shrouded and hidden in plain sight. 

Brian Bartz created a site-specific sculpture which poetically transcribes the ambient radio waves accessible from within the space into ephemeral printed records. Bartz also built a computer that surfed the radio waves and transcribed what it heard into poems that the computer printed out in long scrolls. At night, the computer dreamt and recompiled the day’s news and music into images and synthesized poetry.. 

Gonzales used dowsing rods, discreet radios and emf detectors to investigate how one can experience the electromagnetic landscape of a space. Exploring the sonic textures of static, low-power transmitters, and the physical reverberant space, the artists hosted a hyper-local radio station from the gallery, complete with call-in requests. These various sonic worlds were played live together at the final improvisational performance.