humming the Ubique

next

A mosaic of luminescent foils with artificial voices responds to the imperceptible radiation that envelops our world.
 
The universe is saturated with energies we cannot perceive—radiation, fields, and vibrations that remain outside the reach of our senses. What is visible and audible to humans is only a narrow fragment of the vast electromagnetic and acoustic spectrum. From infrasound to ultraviolet light, from the low-frequency hum of the earth’s magnetic field to distant cosmic radiation, these phenomena surround and traverse us continuously.

In this work, a mosaic of wafer-thin foils forms an emitting large-scale surface—transforming these imperceptible forces into 64 different luminous fields of color and spectral voice. The pigments intensify with voltage, while artificial intelligence generates vocal tones from the captured data. Sensors placed throughout the installation register a spectrum of signals: not only the radiation of the city, but also planetary and cosmic fluctuations—subtle, often ignored, yet always present.
 
The result is a living audiovisual work that offers a sensory translation of the energetic world we inhabit but rarely perceive.

---

Humming the Ubique emerges as an urban echolalia, resonating with the imperceptible elements that shape our world. The work unfolds as a field of perception, where AI listens to the invisible murmurs. Electromagnetic signals are gathered and transformed into screen-printed pigments and spectral voices, speaking in tongues that drift between the machinic and the human.
This configuration becomes entangled with its surroundings, not as a translator, but as an uncanny mimetic entity—offering a language shaped from radiation, pattern, and pulse. These voices cannot explain but shape a language that hints at comprehension—translating the imperceptible into something momentarily graspable but disembodied. In this act of mimesis, the work examines AI’s role in shaping perceptual bridges between the imperceptible and the imaginable.
At the same time, the work reflects on the systems behind this translation: the infrastructures, the energy required to operate, the ecological toll embedded in every digital activity. Humming the Ubique positions itself as a mediator of hidden signals and a material actor within the very networks it seeks to reveal.

- The installation is site-specific and responds to the space’s dimensions and its environment. In the above setup, the installation consists of 64 assembled modules of approximately 40x40cm with total dimensions of 3m50x3m50. For every location, a new site-specific setup is proposed. With a minimum of 24 pieces. Once the dimensions and the property of the space is agreed upon, we are making a proposition with 3D sketches.
- A maximum of 4 sensors are placed at different locations in the environment around the installation where we can capture site-specific EM waves, cosmic waves or natural phenomena. For example: server rooms, outside locations like a train station, airport, a street, a highway, a park, or higher up in mountains if present in the vicinity of the presentation place (away from electricity grids). The sensors transmit the captured signals via cable networks or 4G networks.
​

 

Credits

• Type / Year : Installation 2025
• Materials : foil speakers, sub, amplifiers, jetson,  laptop
• Concept: Aernoudt Jacobs
• Production: r25b4, STUK, KU Leuven (W&T, BAC ART LAB) + LUMSON partner project: iMAL, IMO-IMOMEC, FARI & De Hoge Rielen
  With the support of the Flemish Community
• Electronics & software: Techdesign
  
• Scenographic & technical assistance: Maryia Komarova
  
• Printing & technical assistance: David Jeuniaux (IOxOI). Special thanks to La Zone
  
• Material research: IMO-IMOMEC – UHasselt
  
• AI: Lluc Bono Rossello (FARI — VUB — ULB)
  
• AI-technology: RAVE (Antoine Caillon, Phillippe Esling)
  
• Thanks: Gilles Helsen, STUK
• Pictures : Kristof Vrancken

Presentations

• Hear Here, April-June 2025