”Art as radar acts as ‘an early alarm system,’ as it were, enabling us to discover social and psychic targets in lots of time to prepare to cope with them.” - Marshall McLuhan
RADAR L/410A explores the relationship between technology, human and our immediate surroundings. Using radar technology and sound, the interiors of the Regelbau 411 WW2 bunker is transformed into a immersive sonic environment.
Picturing radio waves travelling towards the horizon and the echo of their encounter with distant objects, the radar appears as a technological messenger of unseen phenomena.
The term ‘remote sensing’ describes this detecting and monitoring of things and their physical characteristics that our own senses are unable to perceive, and which in the timeline of history and meteorology has warned us about future events: the speed and direction of missiles in war zones, a hurricane heading towards land.
In this bunker, traditional radar technology is turned inside-out. The radar signal, which usually reaches for the wide expanses of sea and land, is limited to the enclosed space of the bunker. In each room, a specially designed Doppler radar converts the labyrinthine interior of the bunker directly into sound.
Through continuous rotations, the radar brings together concrete walls and moving bodies, interweaving everything present, not pointing towards the outside world, but to ourselves as divergent disturbances in space.
RADAR L/410A is a part of the solo exhibition RADAR together with the work RADAR L/413A.
The exhibition was curated by Matilde Best and Simon Thykjær.
Created in collaboration with engineers, acousticians and other specialists at Bang & Olufsen, radio enthusiasts from OZ3EDR - EDR Struer and with assistence from Sound Art Lab. Realized with support from the Danish Arts Foundation and Danish Composers’ Society / KODA Culture
Special thanks to Laura Næsby, Aili Niimura, Peer K., and Troels Mikkelsen
Photo: Studio Skjødt Hasselstrøm
Radar L/410A exhibited at Semibreve 2021, Braga, Portugal:
Photos: Studio Skjødt Hasselstrøm