Radio Noise

By Amber Zora

This series of sumi ink drawings and screen prints examine communication. The prints conflate time and space and are in response to international tensions, from the Cold War to today.

Started during a 2017 residency at Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Amherst Virginia, Radio Noise shows soldiers at work, and communication systems. At the time North Korea was conducting a series of nuclear and missile tests.

Very real bodies run these communication systems. Communication technology transforms periods of passive reception into offensive deployment. The soldier waits to detect signs of oncoming danger, or orders to where they are called next. These modes of communication are subject to machine and human error. 

The drawings are sourced from photographs. Some are images from my time in the military as an ammunition specialist and others come from the internet, books and Nike missile site archives.