Review | By Aurelio Cianciotta / Neural
Gold Lines | Bird & Renoult
DinahBird and Jean-Philippe Renoult’s focus here is on early radio transmission technologies. These technologies are now being updated by virtue of the need of the world of finance to transfer data at ever higher speeds – attainable using specific frequencies rather than the internet. Broadcasting via radio waves, an almost forgotten technology, remains one of the most immediate and secure methods of data transmission, which in high-frequency trading (HFT), together with the complex algorithms that analyse different markets, allows stock trading to be even more profitable by exploiting in real time the fluctuations that arise in the value of shares. The two French musicians have been mapping these radio routes since 2016, geolocating the pylons, frequencies, and relay connections that transmit HFT data back and forth, to make audio captures in proximity to the pylons where satellite dishes act as network bridges, thus recording the noise of the signal, the wind beating on the cables that support the structures, along with electromagnetic hums and radio static currents while occasionally adding a voice to provide context. All of this has to do with digitisation, which translates into multiple different temporalities, rhythms, and scansions. […]