Operational Signals

2026
Performance with voice, two-way radio, and prerecorded sound, 17 min.

Every site is saturated with electromagnetic activity. Beyond AM and FM broadcasts, an urban environment carries the chatter of amateur radio; the coordination of air traffic, transit, utility crews, and city services; and data exchanged between machines. Drawing on scanner recordings made across Los Angeles, Operational Signals takes stock of these transmissions: "useful radio" (Rick Prelinger), whose signals don't report on the city's operations but perform them, and amateur radio, where similar protocols frame ordinary conversation. The piece interweaves human voices with Morse code, machine data, and static, joined by a live voice transmitted by radio. Lifting these transmissions out of the systems they serve, Operational Signals asks what routines like naming, clearing, sorting, and tracking reveal about how power operates.

Exhibition History

2026
Reading and Listening by Moonrise, Clockshop at David Horvitz's 7th Ave Garden, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Vanessa Holyoak)