Transmission

Eight hours and forty-five minutes, that’s how much time we spend on average per day on media. That means we spend one third of our lives watching, listening, browsing, calling, Whatsapping, emailing and gaming, which is a surprising (or even shocking) amount of our time.

We do this via telecommunication: information is transferred from one place to another, without requiring anything or anyone to move. We often fail to realise that our messages are converted into patterns or ‘codes’ in the form of electric signals, light pulses or radio waves before they are transmitted via cables, glass fibres or ether (air). And that’s not just the case for data but also for the personal stories, feelings or photos that you send to your family and friends.

While modern communication has drastically changed our lives, it has also become an abstract and elusive process that many of us can’t wrap our heads around. In Transmission, Serge Schoemaker imagines this in his own way: he has created an installation of waving illuminated tubes – 19 to be precise – along the water that have been programmed in a way to make it look like light is literally moving through the air. It’s almost a calming version of the incredibly fast light that travels through fibre optic cables. But what kinds of information does Transmission actually transmit? Who is the sender and who is the recipient?

About the Artist

Serge Schoemaker studied architecture in Delft and Zurich. After his graduation in 2011 he worked for the renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor and was project architect of the Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne. Since 2008 he runs his own practice and works as a visiting lecturer at several universities in the Netherlands.

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Copyright

© Bart Heemskerk
© Serge Schoemaker