The interactive installation “Binairy Talk” uses smoke signs to transmit digital data. Air serves as the communication medium for binary code, as a carrier of data and information across a distance. The hidden processes of the digital world are transferred into the analog world whereby the apparent immateriality and infallibility of the computer language is overcome.
This project, which I did together with Niklas Isselburg, initially started at university, but then was further developed to the final outcome of our own accord.
The big theoretical depth and the combination of communication in general (see Shannon–Weaver model), the analogy to the oldest means of distance communication (smoke signals) and finally of the binary code as informaiton carrier, attracted a lot of attention. This then led to high positive feedback on the internet (The Verge, Vice.com, Engadget.com, toutiao.com and some more) and to some exhibitions including the LAB30 Festival in Augsburg, Germany and the PIKSEL Festival in Bergen, Norway.
Of Ones and Zeros
While digital Data in the form of binary codes was primarily transferred through cables at the turn of the millennium, we are currently confronted with a rise of wireless networks. Air as a transmitting material is taking over. Invisible to our eyes and capable of travelling unimaginable distances due to the seemingly freedom from materiality, data surrounds us everywhere and always.
Binary Talk abuts to the traditional form of long distance communication of smoke signs. The Language transmitted however is that of computers.
The installation wants to create awareness as to how much data and information constantly surrounds us and makes the „Ones and Zeros“ perceivable to the observer.
Transmitting Medium Air
In the installation Binairy Talk air serves as the transmitting medium for binary code, as a carrier of data and information across a distance. While wireless networks use radio technology to transfer data, Binairy Talk transmits data by moving air. The air is made visible and measurable with small particles of fog. The sender or source of the impulse is a loudspeaker which generates an impulse in the air that surpasses space in the shape of a vortex ring, before being received and interpreted by a laser equipped sensor on the other side.
