sender receiver, 2025

solo exhibition in Titik Dua gallery, bali, indoneisa

antennae, radio, bamboo, copper wire, lead weights, shredded paper bales

I use transmission as both medium and message, to describe the expanded and suspended sense of time when talking on and listening to the radio. Amateur radio is resistant to the forces of obsolescence that are seemingly foundational in a society of ceaseless development and linear progress towards ‘the future’. 

The antennae draw a line through space, from one amphitheater in a gallery to an overgrown arena.  A CCTV plays live in the gallery. I conducted interviews of Putu Dharma, avid radioist, and Nyoman Budi, antenna maker and radioists, on a sofa of shredded paper, and transmitted with whoever happened to be on the air at that time. They all spoke to the role that radio played in creating an expanded community in their lives, the open feeling of time, distinct from the immediacy of the phone, and their role as voluntary first-responders when data networks crash. The self appointed keepers of an informational network, the invisible architecture of space.

radio stories: collected anecdotes through conversation about how radio has touched people’s lives.

“I would tune to an australian music channel in the evening as I was going to bed. As I was falling asleep the channel would go from voices and music to pure noise.”

tofan

“My parents met through the radio community in jakarta. They were both amateurists and would appear at the same meetings.  They eventually got married. They were known to their community by their call signs — my dad’s sign was alpha fox, so they called him A-Fox. ” 

linkan

“A representative from the radio station would come to my high school and sell slips of paper called ‘ATENSI’ for 2,500rp. You could submit an advertisement, song request, or message that they would broadcast. At 7pm, me and my friends would be huddled around the radio waiting to hear the messages that had been submitted earlier that day. There was a lot of anticipation because you might get a note from someone you had a crush on. They would also advertise student deals at certain shops, so we would go and then the whole school would be there. We were all tuned into the radio.” 

suy

“My uncle had an antennae and would pick up bits of news from the surrounding area. That’s how information mosly travelled back then. Bits of news would be sent from one antennae to another, dropping its way across the island - each village with its radio guy.” 

ilham