Jürg Lehni, Alex Rich & Raphael Hefti
2009
Hertz is an installation that creates a scenario of public engagement, by inviting the visitor to ride a bicycle that produces enough energy to run a low-power TV station, broadcasting a signal out into the local vicinity of the museum.
Museum im Bellpark Kriens, Switzerland
The migration from analogue to digital broadcasting at the end of 2008 freed most of the frequency bands previously used for airing TV programs, marking a significant transformation of media and the end of analogue broadcasting.
The signal transmitted by Hertz consists of images generated by Flood Fill, an algorithm that renders animations of black and white pixels that appear almost as the alignment of the snow-like fuzz received when the channel is dormant.