Listening Space
Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot

Listening Space is an on-going artistic research project that uses NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather satellite data as a raw material for poetic exploration and citizen science. Using wearable hand-crafted antennas and software-defined radio, satellite signals are intercepted, decoded and then knitted into textiles. The ecologies of transmission that comprise the Radio Spectrum, are the ultimate expression of the so-called Anthropocene, as they permit the operation of human life as we know it (telecommunications, environmental monitoring, radio astronomy, FM/AM radio etc) and shape our understanding of the planet. By investigating the energies that have been harvested by humanity to knit this complex layer, the project aims to create poetic connotations between textiles-as a means of data detection, collection and archiving, and bodies as agents of power to re-interpret current technologies through handmade crafting techniques. Listening Space attempts to enhance the human capability to sense and to embody the dialogues intercepted between earth and its satellites.



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Afroditi Psarra, PhD is a multidisciplinary artist and an Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington where she runs the DXARTS Softlab. Her research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. She is interested in the use of the body as an interface of control, and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. She uses cyber crafts and other gendered practices as speculative strings, and open-source technologies as educational models of diffusing knowledge. Her work has been presented at international media art festivals such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Amber, Piksel, and WRO Biennale between others, and published at conferences like Siggraph, ISWC (International Symposium of Wearable Computers), DIS (Designing Interactive Systems), C&C (Creativity and Cognition), and EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts).





Audrey Briot is an artist, textile designer and independent researcher. She is cofounder of DataPaulette, a collective and hackerspace dedicated to research in textiles technologies and soft materials. Her work is dedicated to the impact of emerging technologies on the preservation of savoir-faire, especially in textiles. She is focusing on non-verbal communication transmitted by textiles which represent for her an entire culture and even a substitute of writing. In order to do so she relies on anthropological research going back to the Paleolithic Era. Following this direction she connects machines and computers to make textiles which are memory vectors with added data and interactivity. Her work has been exhibited at Ars Electronica, BOZAR and ISEA and published at CHI, ISWC and DIS.




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