Aural Codes
Rewiring reality between urban, virtual and radio space
2001
Aural Codes rewires computer networks to AM radio. Data streams at arbitrarily selected points of computer networks in the region are interpreted as digital representations of sound. They serve as sound-sources and process-controls. The sound sources are fed into a dsp-blackbox controlled by the process-controls. Additionally interactive gateways are spread over the local area (serial-sockets on street corners etc.). Thus a hybrid network of possibilities of influences is set up. The resulting stream of sonic events is modulated onto a carrier-frequency and broadcast via radio as a noiseband hidden between all the other noises in the AM range. Every sonic event is information and via the mediator energy-exchange, all information can become a sonic event. Aural Codes is a hearing aid, a hearing aid for listening in its widest sense. Something that originally cannot be heard is transposed into something that – without technical equipment – cannot be heard.
Control device to interact with the AM radio broadcast in real time
Two transmitters for Aural Codes’ serial data communication
AM transmitter mounted on the roof of Hoxton Hall, East London
The artist with one of the serial communication receivers on a roof over East London
