Numbers Station
by Max Goldfarb
A Numbers Station is a source of coded number sequences recited in short-wave radio transmission; 'public' communications of private information. These numerical lists have emanated from uncertain origins for nearly a century. The book Numbers Station, made in conjunction with Goldfarb's exhibition of the same title at The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (September 2023), re-positions and re-codes what may be understood about familiar images and forms. Together, the book and artifacts examine useful objects—tools and equipment—as indication of the contexts in which they were made and applied. The ecology of things presented in Numbers Station are activated as operational visual language: sculptural facsimiles, substitutions, metonyms, approximations or alternates. The works are generated from an underlying, sequential system, provoking close and interpretive observation, regarding the everyday engagement with technology.
Book design by Ilona Gaynor
