Experience The Experience Of One Baud

photo by Scott Beale

monochrom is wrapping up their amazing “Experience The Experience!” West Coast tour this week. They have been in San Francisco three previous times this month and are returning for one more performance at Rx Gallery in San Francisco this Friday, July 22nd. This final experiment will be “Experience The Experience Of 1 Baud”, which they held a workshop for at last night’s dorkbot-sf (Here are my photos from dorkbot-sf #19). They will be attempting to send a signal, equivelant to the size of one baud, through San Francisco via participants using semaphore flags. At last night’s workshop, Johannes Grenzfurthner gave a hilarous account of their attemps to test their signaling techniques on a roadtrip to Nevada and Arizona.

The International Code of Signals serves to facilitate communication at sea. It defines the meaning of alphabetical identification codes for safety and navigation purposes. The key for “sending” was drafted by a committee of the British Board of Trade in 1855 and published in 1857. The 1969 edition, revised in 2003, is still in use today. We have expanded the flag alphabet, not just so that it also includes the @ sign, but so that city dwellers have access to pure communication. The flag alphabet will be taught in a workshop lasting several hours. After a few days set aside for study and practice, we would like, in the form of a competition, to send an identical message across the city over two equally long routes simultaneously. Will it work?