Pulse Shape 22 is an improvisational audiovisual performance featuring shortwave radio transmissions as the sole source material for realtime audio processing alongside video of the sun captured and projected through cast glass lenses designed specifically for this piece.

Pulse Shape 22 utilizes Gnu Radio software in conjunction with Ettus Research LLC’s Universal Software Radio Peripheral for realtime data acquisition and demodulation, as well as custom software built in SuperCollider and C++ for live signal processing and video manipulation.

The structure of the piece is derived from metrics on energy accumulation over a period of 2.2 nanoseconds resulting from the targeting of sixty lasers on a single tetrahedral hohlraum in weapons testing experiments as carried out at the Los Alamos Inertial Confinement Fusion unit’s Omega laser facility.

Pulse Shape 22 is an exploration of architectural space through the use of site- and time-specific information found in regions of the electromagnetic spectrum outside of the reaches of the human sensory apparatus. It is an attempt to alter the audience’s perceptions of their surroundings and create a moment of rupture from hidden worlds found in our local environment.