Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In the vast expanse of the New Mexico high desert, the Very Large Array radio astronomy observatory and Walter De Maria’s art installation The Lightning Field each harness elemental forces. Though conceived for different reasons, both redraw boundaries among geology, climate, the cosmos, and art. Reading these two installations alongside one another, the authors foreground antennae as conduits of connectivity—structural and conceptual modules within operative chains that bind imperceptible energies to their scientific, technical, and aesthetic expression. Such chains do not merely convey forces that already exist in readily intelligible form; they select, differentiate, translate, and render them available to perception and knowledge. The concept of cultural techniques names these material operations and the distinctions they produce, including those between signal and noise, reception and transmission, the perceptible and the imperceptible. Engineered antennae thus emerge as cultural techniques that transform elemental forces into media, transmute media back into elemental phenomena, and stand as aesthetic objects in their own right.
Source: Leonardo
DOI: 10.1162/leon.a.88
Authors: Yanai Toister, Nimrod Astarhan
Institutions: Tampere University, University of Tampere, Aalto University
Language: English
Topic: Art, Technology, and Culture
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7140160210
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