“Coldwell goes beyond the dominant perception of hauntology to expose subtle layers below.”

Wire Magazine

Where AM (2017) investigated the spectrality and lo-fi aesthetics of short wave radio, Virtual Private Broadcast does the same for the webcam.

I was particularly interested in forgotten and unmanned cameras, dutifully broadcasting their grainy images of nothing in particular, often to nobody at all, across the digital ether.

Alongside weather cams and traffic surveillance footage, private CCTV feeds of people’s front doors and garages, and weird flickering blank screens left in the dark, you come across countless sex shows and people asleep in their bedrooms. Adding to the creepiness and alienation of Shodan's view are the sound streams, spectralised beyond all recognition by shit microphones and poor bandwidth. Many of the tracks were created by turning up the gain on feeds from empty rooms, trying to listen for clues in the garbled noise floor - a process not dissimilar to ghost hunting (see EVP). Out of context these feeds seemed disconnected and isolating, yet created by communication technologies supposedly designed to help bring people together.

https://confluxcoldwell.bandcamp.com/album/virtual-private-broadcast