The Tracker is a binaural sound experience produced as part of the larger project "Circuits of Sand and Water." The audio in this piece tells a story about a woman battling isolation in the pandemic. She starts watching her neighbours from her window. Soon, she is compelled to get closer and hacks into their devices. She witnesses each neighbour using their online presence as a salve for emotional wounds; they all indulge in mirages enabled by the very medium used to surveil them. The piece gives human form to the surveillance practices that exploit our desire for connection. It explores what it feels like to balance an animal urge for connection with the mechanical logic of progress.
Technology came to mediate every interaction in the pandemic. The intention of this project as a whole is to give a human form to surveillance practices that exploit our need for connection.
We give so much of our data over to multinational tech giants. What if a neighbour were to access our online activity? Most people would find it creepy. But why does spying through the window make us more uncomfortable than an abstract entity designed to extract and store our data forever? We make many tacit wagers for online connection, these were the starting point for the work of ambient literature I have developed.
The Voice in the piece is by Leni Parker and the sound design is by Julia Dyck.
Prachi Khandekar is a curator, designer, and writer. She conceives and creates exhibitions and multimedia projects. She examines our tech- and brand-driven culture, with a particularly interest in exploring the polarities of comfort and pain embedded in our digital interactions: laughter, isolation, nostalgia, anxiety, and everything in between.
The Deep Wireless 17 Compilation Album was produced by New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) for the 2023 edition of the annual Deep Wireless Festival of Radio & Transmission Art. The works on the album are curated on the theme “Remote Connections”. The album includes a cross spectrum of radio and transmission art practices and includes work created for performances, gallery installations and online audio that brings together influences from documentary, poetry and electronic music among others.
Editions 9 through 16 of the Deep Wireless Compilation are available on NAISA's Soundcloud site. Previous compact disc editions can be heard online at naisa.ca/media-archive/compactdiscs/
Copyright of the works belongs to the artists who have agreed to have their work on this compilation album.
Note that Deep Wireless 17 is not available for download. Community and public radio or internet broadcasters should contact NAISA directly for access to the works for airplay. Contact naisa@naisa.ca for more information.
Artistic Director: Darren Copeland
Executive Director: Nadene Thériault-Copeland
Image Illustration: Prashant Miranda
