Signal to Noise

<p dir="ltr">Background </p><p dir="ltr">If the Information Age was defined by the control of data, Signal to Noise explores what happens when those systems overflow. The exhibition examines how artists work with, challenge, and complicate the relationship between signal and interference, across technologies from radio and television to the internet, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic culture. Where computation seeks to eliminate noise, artists reclaim it as a generative, critical, and poetic force. Signal to Noise revisits a lineage of “interference aesthetics,” from Nam June Paik and George Brecht to Lillian Schwartz and JODI, tracing how noise has served as both disruption and revelation within communication systems. </p><p dir="ltr">Contribution </p><p dir="ltr">Curated by Joel Stern, with Emily Siddons and Eryk Salvaggio, and presented at the National Communications Museum, Signal to Noise brings together international artworks, new commissions, and technology collections by artists including Nam June Paik, George Brecht, Lillian Schwartz, JODI, elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ, Craftwork, Rowan Savage, Mimi Ọnụọha, Machine Listening, and Eryk Salvaggio. The exhibition draws from the paradox at the heart of generative AI: creativity simulated through the systematic reduction of randomness. The featured works instead locate creativity in what cannot be denoised; glitches, distortions, and breakdowns that resist algorithmic order. </p><p dir="ltr">Significance </p><p dir="ltr">Through its exploration of noise as resistance, material, and knowledge, Signal to Noise reframes interference as a site of political and aesthetic possibility. It extends the curatorial research trajectory established by This Hideous Replica, advancing inquiry into the poetics of malfunction and the politics of mediation in post-digital culture.</p>