Site Specific Installation
2008/2011
Mixed Media

SOON: download the latest Spectral Survey Map of Barcelona, Spain, created for the occupation of the OSE during the Camps Invisibles exhibition at Arts Santa Monica.

WIRED online, Beyond the Beyond on the Invisible Fields Exhibition

Documentation from the OSE's occupation within the Oboro Gallery in Montreal.

Initiated while an assistant researcher in residence with the Interstices Team at Hexagram.



Below follows a text written for the 2008 Jounees de la Culture event in Montreal as an introduction to the OSE.

The Office of Spectral Ecology is proud to welcome the public into its inner workings. The presence at Oboro is a little like Willie Wonka's infamous opening of their doors crossed with a the Diefenbunker's institutionalization as a museum relic. The office has been operating since 2007, with a variety of forays and actions which deal with citizen's pubic space within and around the electromagnetic spectrum. Rather than detail the myriad underpinnings of why the office chooses to do what it does, the paper you have in your hand can serve as your personal tour guide through the office.

Along the back wall behind the desk, you'll find the Canadian Radio Spectrum Allocation. This is partially a copy of a document created by Industry Canada, with the office's own interjections and data inserted where specific developments have taken place in regards to the use of the spectrum within Canada's borders. The radio spectrum allocation is overseen globally and internationally by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU – for more information about the ITU please see the book “From Semaphores to Satellites” available on the desk itself). The funny thing about the whole concept of allocation, is that it is a hold over from around the 1920s method of establishing some order on the airwaves. Of course, as with any natural resource, governments and corporations can only find value in something as it is divided and sold off, or in the case of the spectrum divided and licensed. For instance, a tree as it stands in the forest only has value after it is cut down and sold for lumber or to make paper, and so on. The same goes for the spectrum. However today, there exists the possibility to slowly change this 'divide and sell' mentality, technology exists whereby several devices can share the same frequency without causing interference to the other. We only have to look as far as the ubiquitous WiFi access point as an example of such technology.

The spectrum chart on the wall to the right of the desk has an overall picture of the electromagnetic spectrum, and in fact shows where the ITU intends to license more space on the spectrum. Starting in 2012, the ITU will begin to discuss the option of allocating frequencies from 300GHz to 4THz. In doing so, countries will have the opportunity to auction even more licenses within their borders. They will sell the right to use a natural resource that they themselves have invested nothing in.

On the large LCD monitor, you can see a virtual tour using Google Earth Technology of a series of public interventions within the city of Montreal that the office has carried out this year. During the summer of 2008, office agents have been drifting through the city of Montreal making measurements of micro climates of the spectrum and emissions of electrical, magnetic and radio frequency field emitted by these devices. The exact location is recorded, audio of the field is recorded, and adhesive labels are placed on the emitting device. A photo is then made of the location, and is uploaded along with the data into custom KML parsing software in order to create the visualization of the locations. What you see on the screen then, is a picture along with the precise time, location and field measurement with a graphic depiction of each field. The height of the translucent column is directly related to the energy of the magnetic, electric and RF fields combined. For additional information regarding exposure to various fields on the human body, please refer to the Safety Code 6 document produced by Industry Canada. A copy of this document is available in the 'inbox' on the desk. All countries have differing opinions on effects of these fields on the body, with the World Health organization's regulations being the most conservative and the United States being the most liberal. Canada's is slightly more conservative than the US's.

On the desk, you'll find a variety of things pertaining to the office's operation; books as reference guides, director Matthew Biederman's Amateur Radio License, FCC registration documents details the offices attempt to bid on the US's Spectrum Auction #73, current documents collected from various publications and so on. On the desk is a screen depicting several realtime conditions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Data is downloaded from various sources on the Internet, and the plots are produced and updated daily of the K-index, Interplanetary Flux, and other conditions that are directly related to the ionosphere's ability to transmit communications. You'll also see realtime images made into movies from the SOHO satellites which have their sensors focused on the sun. Any of the anomalies that you may witness on the plots, you will also see in the images on the sun. For instance, large solar flares, or storms, will affect the magnetic field of the Earth and raise the K-index. If the storm is high enough, it will wipe out frequencies of communication as well. These anomalies will be present in both the images, the data plots and the map image on the screen on the desk. At the micro level, the magnetic field is also measured in the office itself in milligaus, this data is collected with the same probe that was used for the survey mentioned above. This data is then averaged over one minute, and one hour intervals in order that you might have an idea of the different levels throughout the day.

All this time while looking around the office, you have been hearing an audio stream from another concurrent project of the office of spectral ecology, DAREDX. The project, too lengthy to go into deal about here, is a tactical media project taken on by the office where one of our agents examines the worldwide communication protocols in the armature radio bands, the only public space in the spectrum. More information can be found at www.radio.dare-dare.org for specific details of this venture.

This concludes the short paper tour of the office. There is a website also dedicated to the dissemination of the the office's work from the past present and also looking to the future. Please do not hesitate to have a look, and ask any questions you might have. We also welcome your commentary at: www.spectralecology.org

and remember, the spectrum is all of ours! Now go out there and make a claim for your rights!