This is a radio / video installation exhibited at Rib Rotterdam as part of the ”Mirror Becomes a Partner” group exhibition.

In Taiwan and Japan I’ve captured images of ghosts. By Transmuting these images of ghosts into a radio signal, I release them into Rib’s gallery space. Like a ghost, this signal is present, but cannot be seen – only picked up by a lone CRT-TV.

As my previous work questions the homely, here I question the opposite: the unhomely. How can something that was once familiar and homely, become uncanny? For example: a dark and empty playground, that was once full of people. The dolls from our youth, that we reanimated in our imagination, we do not wish to come alive in the dark. What causes us to rather avoid uncanny situations, and not confront our fears? Is there really a presence present beyond our understanding, or is our imagination filling in the gaps of the unknown? And so I question: when confronted with the weird and the eerie, what makes our perception shift into the uncanny? Why should we confront something we’d rather avoid? In casting the signal within the gallery space, Rib becomes a space where these ghosts, our imagination, and fears may roam freely.

In tandem, the work also questions our unknowingness of the technology that surrounds us, as we often associate glitches, unknown signals, and random patterns within noise, with things supernatural. Are our projected ghosts really supernatural if we know that the ‘ether’ – the empty space surrounding us – has already been claimed and redistributed by governments for all sorts of commercial, medical and military broadcast applications? All kinds of data and signals are already floating trough and above our heads. Because the ‘ether’ is regulated, broadcasting radio signals without proper licensing is considered illegal. Ironically, for fear of being detected, this work is therefore haunted by its own essence.