Stratum
2025
Electronic sculpture, critical interface
Stratum is an electronic sculpture referencing the design of an antenna tower used for receiving data from satellites. This critical interface points to the imposed paradigm of a unique synchronized time, retrieved from atomic-clock-carrying satellites orbiting around the Earth. It reflects on the question of what determines our temporal reality when we passively rely on standardized technologies of time measurement and distribution.
This speculative artwork employs various types of GPS antennas and receiver modules, connected to microcomputers, displays, electromagnetic microphones and speakers, to reveal those aspects of time infrastructure that usually are invisible or hidden.
Electronic sculpture, critical interface, sound installation
Dimensions: 62cm x 62cm x 180cm
View of Stratum at adaptér Creative Technology Knowledge Center, Budapest, Hungary. Photo by Novák Doro.
Detail of Stratum. Photo by Novák Doro.
Photo by Pedro Anguila, from the exhibition Bits & Bots, Centro de Historias, Zaragoza, Spain.
"Stratum offers a sensorial and critically informed reflection on how technological systems silently and invisibly shape our perception and experience of nothing less than time itself. The work is part of Silvia Binda’s broader artistic practice, which seeks to expose the material infrastructures of technology by deconstructing processes that usually remain hidden, breaking them down into visible actions. With her work, she invites us to reflect on our technological lives through this deconstruction process.
At the centre of the installation is a receiver tower for satellite data, a sculptural element that evokes the infrastructures regulating our everyday sense of temporality. Stratum questions the imposed notion of a singular, synchronised time dictated by satellites orbiting the Earth, each equipped with atomic clocks. Through a network of GPS antennas, receiver modules, electromagnetic microphones, screens, and speakers, the piece reveals the hidden layers and imperceptible mechanisms of time measurement and distribution in the digital age.
If time is all we truly have, how many hours are our devices stealing from us? What may feel like mere moments often turn into hours. Stratum raises an urgent question: how much of our precious time is being claimed through our digital devices?
Economist and Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon coined the term attention economy, warning that the overabundance of content across all types of media would make attention a scarce resource, creating the cognitive bottleneck of the digital age. It is a fact that certain tech companies base their business on advertising and data extraction, and for that reason, they aim to maximise the time we spend on their platforms. In this landscape, time becomes not only a contested commodity but a subjective and increasingly manipulable experience."
Curatorial text by Blanca Pérez Ferrer
(for Bits & Bots the exhibition in Zaragoza, Spain, 2025)
Stratum at the exhibition Bits & Bots, Centro de Historias, Zaragoza, Spain. Video by Julian Fallas.
Photos above by Julian Fallas, from the exhibition Bits & Bots, Centro de Historias, Zaragoza, Spain.
Still from 3D animation of caesium.
Screen caption of the captive portal that appears on the screen of your mobile phone after connecting to the Stratum wifi network.