GRAND DETOUR

2020
Hali Palombo

GRAND DETOUR is a slow-scan television broadcast and soundscape. Named after an unincorporated census-designated place in Illinois, GRAND DETOUR depicts 32 desolate Midwestern scenes. Empty malls, weathered parking structures, shuttered toll booths and other cast-offs are revealed line-by-line via slow scan television, an increasingly obsolete method of image transmission via radio signal. The SSTV frequencies weave in and out of field recordings taken at the corresponding locations broadcasted, resulting in unnerving, hollow soundscapes punctuated by jarring bursts of data. Slow-scan television is a method of radio communication slowly growing obsolete - a suitable medium by which to portray the Midwestern decay in GRAND DETOUR. - Reprinted from https://theradius.us/episode91