Algotypes

Algotypes (2020)

Algotypes is an intervention in the 2.4GHz WiFi band, inspired by the more esoteric sides of science that have been used to explain invisible phenomena.

Unlike æther or orgone, and despite pop-culture imagery associated with The Cloud, WiFi has a very material and tangible provenance. From minerals and metals to its radiant energy, there’s a very blunt aspect of this entanglement of culture and infrastructure that is physical and extends into surrounding bodies.

Here, the pyramid sculptures are equipped with WiFi transceivers and programmed to react to the signals floating around them. They capture packets of data from nearby routers and phones, which are then manipulated using classical computer science algorithms before being retransmitted on their own network.

Other than network names and some management packets, the pyramids can’t decode and deduce human meaning from this binary data, nor modify or block any communication. They only create their own interpretation of the raw bytes of information flying around. This would be the equivalent of cutting up copies of a book written in an unknown language and reorganizing the letters and words using different procedures.

Screens display information about the nearby WiFi networks showing network names and channels, as well as a visualization of the packets being read and transmitted by the pyramids.