Fayen d’Evie and Jen Bervin with Bryan Phillips and Andy Slater

'Cosmic Static' is the outcome of d'Evie and Bervin's research at the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) artist-in-residence programme. It experiments with the dynamics of 'cosmic eavesdropping', combining a repurposed sculptural radio telescope feed from one of SETI’s arrays with an ultrasonic projection of field recordings and stories of individuals dedicated to listening for extraterrestrial signals.

Central to the work is the story of amateur radio operator Grote Reber, who succeeded in detecting cosmic static in 1938 using a parabolic antenna built in his Chicago backyard. Cosmic Static samples two bodies of field recordings, one from the Tasmanian landscapes where Reber moved in 1954 and constructed antenna farms by stringing wires across sheep grazing lands, and the other from the Grote Reber Museum at the University of Hobart’s Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory. Another narrative collages fragments from the history of extraterrestrial listening, including field recordings at SETI’s Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, California, where a small operational staff maintains forty-two small dishes, searching for anomalous stellar and interstellar signals. A third story explores the research of SETI astrophysicist Laurance Doyle, who studies the language complexity and signal transmissions of non-human species – from plant–insect communications, to monkey whistling and baby dolphin babbling – to develop methods of discerning intelligent extraterrestrial signals amidst the galactic noise.

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