Shortwave Collective is an international feminist group using the electromagnetic spectrum as artistic material.
In our inquiry, radio waves call for an open form of engagement with their complex, multifaceted, simultaneous and varied nature. Our distributed group practice reveals different modes of listening to the electromagnetic transmissions embedded within a soundscape. We pay attention to the position of each listener within a wider constellation of bodies, acoustic environments, and technologies, and reflect together on the situatedness and the material and cultural ecologies at stake in every listening.
We spend time together remotely and in hybrid forms—making, testing and sharing. Through this collective practice, we have created new designs for DIY radios (dubbed ‘Open Wave-Receivers’), antennas, and other pieces of radio-related technologies. We draw from intersectional feminist praxis to learn about and through radio technology – together as equal non-experts, emphasing co-learning and co-discovery, rather than reaching one finite goal. Our work expands beyond the technical, and our embodied experience - and that of anyone who joins our explorations - contributes to a shared pool of knowledge, with all of the differentiation that comes through different bodies, different ears and ways of sensing.
Various images from workshops at Red Herring Press and Primeyarc, and site visits.
As the commissioned artists for YARMONICS festival, we spent time in Great Yarmouth in the autumn of 2024 - meeting local artists, collectives and community groups, and delivering public workshops. During these visits, we used radio circuits as a methodology to learn about the area. Together with residents, we constructed homemade radios (dubbed Open Wave-Receivers) and considered the function of each component in the circuit (antenna, ground, coil, diode, phones). We turned this into a set of questions: Where do residents go to receive signals? Where do they feel grounded? We produced a zine that documents these conversations, questions, and locations.
The list of locations that symbolically stand in for the elements of a radio circuit, described by participants, then acted as our guide. We took various microphones and DIY radios to some of these locations, filming our adventures on an analogue camera. The resulting film, zine and radios constructed on-site formed an exhibition at PrimeYarc in May 2025 as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
Images from ‘Great Waves’ exhibition at Primeyarc, May 2025