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In the times of the Inca Empire, an information device system called Khipu emerged. The information was recorded into cords of cotton or wool and coded in numeric values, according to binary and decimal coding. The Khipu, consists of a principal or primary cord, with no knots, from which other subsidiary cords of different shapes, colors and sizes hang. These threads hide a meaning that transcends the arithmetic plane and they tell stories about an ancient civilization.

Somehow, it is stated that Khipus were books with an alphanumeric system that served as a mnemonic (memory) device to remember facts. However, Khipus are systems that contain various layers of memory. They include physical, biological, social, economic, historic and linguistic facts; constructing an entity of holistic logic. Its interpretation is more complex than the simple reckoning of its individual elements. This is why a khipu is considered an ecological prehispanic computer. These computers were made with organic materials like stones, wool, vegetable fibres, ceramics, seeds. Even the human body is part of this computing system: the fingers and toes codify and the brain of the user processes the information. The importance of khipus lies in its transcendental cosmic significance and the preservation of the wisdom inherited from our originary populations.

Nowadays, as in the Khipus, computer systems process information through a binary system: the Bit (Binary digIT) is the basic information unit. Some studies state the relevant physical fact in the manufacture of the Khipus, to the point that, in order to understand its code, and achieve a deep comprehension of this device, it is necessary to manufacture one.

On July 2017, in Mexico City, a group of five women conformed an experimental creation lab called “Textile Computing and Ghost Sonification” (“Computación textil y sonificación de espectros)” with the aim to study the signs of the traditional Inca Khipu and the analogies between this knot system and the contemporary binary coding system. As a result of the laboratory, we created an electrotextile open source computer, through the manufacturing of an astronomical khipu. This textile computer consists of an antenna and an electronic circuit that generates sound. Most of the khipus were burned by the colonizers. Of the few khipus that still exist their message is unknown because their code has not been figured out. That is why the main intention of the project was to create a sensible interaction between people and this ancient technology through electromagnetism and to grant voice to the khipu through sound. We can say that our work is an artistic and sonic interpretation about the technology and history of our ancestors.

This audio recording included electromagnetic waves captured from the installation of the piece Montreal, Canada (May, 2018) Valparaíso, Chile (September, 2018) Bourges, France (November, 2019) a broadcast of Radio Cósmica Libre, México (March, 2021) and some interventions made with paranormal electronics based on transitors’s circuits and the human body as an antenna. hacked radio transmitters, circuit bent walkie talkies feedbacks, a Corazón de Robota version of the Inspire VLF-3 radio receiver, EMF amplifiers and a DIY theremin edited with free software. These interventions were made in night sessions in December 2021 from the heart of Tenochtitlan.

Constanza Piña Pardo is a visual artist, dancer and researcher, focused on experimentation with electronic media, free technologies and DIWO methodologies. Her artistic proposals are presented in various formats integrating dance, installation, sound performance and social practices. Her work explores noise as a sound, political and cultural phenomenon. She reflects on the role of machines in our culture and the human/non-human technological units, questioning the academy, capitalism, anthropocentrism and techno-heteropatriarchy as opposition to open knowledge, autonomy and enhancement of technical manual work. Interested in recycling, hardware hacking, soft-circuits, DIY Antennas, handicrafts synths, ancestral technologies and electronic wizardry, generates her sound project Corazón de Robota (She-Robot Heart) with synthesizers DIY, where she explores the field of audible and inaudible frequencies as physical perceptions, vibrations as cosmic messages, noise and arrhythmia.

Her work has been part of international festivals and spaces as Marginalia+lab, Nuvem y FILE (Brasil), C.C. Simón I Patiño y Kiosko Galería (Bolivia), Ljudmila, RampaLab (Eslovenia), Cerocinco (Paraguay), Laboratorio de juguete, Flexible, Museo del traje, Museo del Juguete, CCBA, FASE (Argentina), PIKSEL (Noruega), Museum of Fine Art Boston, Video Sur II (US), Boom-Chix-A-Boom #6, Perte de Signal, Eastern Bloc (Canadá), Museo de Antioquia, Congreso de Mujeres, Tecnología y Cultura libre, Bogotrax, Plataforma Bogotá, Museo de Arte moderno, Selvatorio, Platohedro (Colombia), Labsurlab, Cosmoaudición CAC, Medialab Cuenca (Ecuador), TECHNE.11 (Uruguay), FIDET, Interface, Deformes, Danzalborde, Tsonami (Chile) La inventoría FabLab, CINNO, La Jauría (Costa Rica) La casa Tomada (El Salvador) Yantra y Festival Gradiente (Guatemala), Cenart, Centro de Cultura Digital, CCEMX, MedialabMX (México) EEII’12, Radiona (Croacia) Pixelache (Finlandia-Estonia), Hangar, Medialab Prado (España) Databaz, Apo33, Emmetrope, Bandits-Mages (Francia) NK project (Alemania) Studio Loos, Sotu fest (Holanda) Festival Open-Close (Polonia), Frowntails (Grecia), Asim’tria (Perú), Crack fest (Italia) Menulab (República Checa), Slut Island, Perte de Signal, Studio XX, Eastern Bloc (Montreal), Iklektic (UK), LIWOLI, Onomatopoesie,Tresor, Ars Electronica (Austria) LabKillLab (Taiwan).

In 2020 she was awarded with honorable mention in the Prix Ars Electronica for her artwork Khipu / Electrotextile Prehispanic Computer. She is currently part and founding member of several queer collectives and women’s groups as Chimbalab (2009-2011), Híbridas y Quimeras: Women in sound and electronic experimentation, Fuck the soundcheck: Against sexist violence in soundchecks and she is the founder of Cyborgrrrls: TechnoFeminist Meeting celebrate every March in Mexico City from 2017. Constanza lives and works nomadically and embody the philosophy of free culture, electronic anarchy and techno-feminism her research on synthesizers handmade and electrotextiles can be seen documented on her blog.

Curated by Afroditi Psarra, "Transmission Ecologies" explores the turbulent world of radio signals which propagate around us. Each show features a guest sound artist who broadcasts their radio experiments using EMFs, interference patterns from devices, HAM, RF field recordings, satellite signals, space astronomy research, etc. to formulate their interpretations, compositions, and translations of the invisible and unheard layer of telecommunication technologies.

"Transmission Ecologies" is commissioned by Stegi Radio / Onassis Culture.

Afroditi Psarra is a multidisciplinary artist and an Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington where she runs the DXARTS Softlab. Her research focuses on the interweaving of art and science through the creation of artifacts with a critical lens. In her projects she explores energetic phenomena like electromagnetic radiation, and technologies such as radio-frequency sensing, fractal antennas, and software-defined radio. She is particularly interested in the use of the body as an interface of control, and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. Her art practice builds on and extends the work of Cyber and Techno-Feminism(s) and the idea of bodies as archives of information, and manifests through e-textiles and wearables, performances, installations and sound art.

She has exhibited her work internationally in venues such as Onassis Stegi, Bozar, Laboral, EMST, Ars Electronica, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Amber, Piksel, and WRO Biennale between others, and published at conferences like Siggraph, ISWC (International Symposium of Wearable Computers), DIS (Designing Interactive Systems), C&C (Creativity and Cognition), and EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts).