Victoria Keddie

Broadcasting is a persistent medium.

I explore the tools built for broadcasting audio and visual signals and turn these technologies in on themselves. This reflexivity allows new methodologies to manifest, where the language embedded in these machines move quickly and transform with a kind of inner logic.

I am working to identify orbital debris objects, track their physical transformation, and develop an audio and visual language suitable for the objects afterlife. Earth’s Lower Orbit (LEO) is populated with over 20,000 debris objects alongside operating systems. This planetary midden traces a linear global narrative of technological advancements and failures from the 20th century to present day. Much of the debris comes from rocket stages, defunct satellites, and past object to object collisions. Included in the orbiting junk are solar panels, a lost bag of tools, and microscopic flakes of paint. The language ascribed to the debris carries the aura of the object when it took part in, or functioned as, an operating system. Now absent of agency, these debris objects can share an expanded language among functioning satellite systems and human beings in (LEO). At present stage, I have built a visual database using 3D render software, fed by NASA and ESA’s TLE coordinates for the 20,000 + debris objects in LEO. The objects have been assigned signal-based signatures by way of software synthesizer and informed by my analog modular synthesizer. The debris moves in a real time orbit and oscillate according to its proximity with neighboring debris. In addition, I am developing a VR environment that would allow one to virtually interact or perform with the debris objects in real time. This is the start of where I hope to build a more sophisticated system and in turn, a series of immersive audio and visual compositions.

Orbital debris exists beyond its imbued function and life. The debris’ entropic state pushes the object into a new kind of agency. Enabling ourselves as receivers, we can re contextualize the debris as a collective instrument for sound and vision. Moreso, we may broadcast these compositions as persistent transmissions in the effort to again make contact.

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