Light Phone is an experiment in hyper-local communication. Inspired by the ‘Astro Phone’ or ‘Light Telephone’, devices developed in the 1960s that transmit sound via modulated infrared light, documented in Lori Emerson's Radical Technology Sourcebook (2025), the project repurposes disused remote controls into short-range communication devices. Interested in the distinctive grain of infrared transmission, Light Phone will create a network of low-power, DIY, line-of-sight telephones that future Wave Farm residents can use to communicate across the landscape.

During her residency, Hannah will document these transmission experiments on 16mm infrared film, exploring how analogue film might render otherwise invisible wireless signals perceptible - perhaps even allowing a telephone call to be seen as well as heard. The resulting short experimental film will capture the textures of light, transmission and landscape, hand-developed in plant-based chemistry made from foraged Wave Farm vegetation.

Hannah Kemp-Welch is a sound artist with a social practice. Since gaining her amateur radio license in 2019, she has focused on developing inclusive pedagogies and technologies for electromagnetic listening. She constructs DIY antennas to tune into natural radio, documented in the BBC Radio 4 feature All Under One Magnetosphere (2025), produced with Oliver Sanders. She recently co-curated the symposium Electromagnetic Fields: Artistic Research and Radio Waves. Her edited collection Listening Glossary will be published by Silver Press in October 2026. Hannah is an Associate Lecturer for MA Sound Arts at London College of Communication, a PhD student with Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), and a member of feminist radio art group Shortwave Collective.