Julian Oliver - art opening up communications technology

Now installed in central Berlin is a fully functional, open source GSM cellphone tower that, in luminous hot pink, asks to be noticed. It’s the work of New Zealand artist, activist and ‘critical engineer’ Julian Oliver who returned to Upper Hutt when Covid struck. 

‘Pink Cell Tower’ accepts connections from any mobile phone, assigning them a new phone number and allowing them to text and call others connected to the network for free, entirely in private.

Considering engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, Oliver’s work is concerned with opening up communications technology, working against the surveillance of our lives. Oliver’s ingenious useable sculptural works explore both the liberation and threat technology provides, making visible what global private entities try to keep hidden.  

Pink Cell Tower (2021) at Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum

The Extinction Gong (2017) is fitted with a mechanism that beats to the rhythm of species extinction, estimated to be about 27,000 losses a year, or one every 19 minutes.

The Extinction Gong (2017)

The Extinction Gong (2017)

Asunder (2019): a super computer solving the world’s climate and ecological crises, with uncomfortable results. A fictional ‘environmental manager’ proposes and simulates future alterations to the planet to keep it safely within planetary boundaries.

Asunder (2019)

Harvest (2017) uses wind energy to mine cryptocurrency to fund climate research

Harvest (2017)

The Transparency Grenade (2013) contains a micro-computer, a microphone and an antenna that captures the information traffic and sound in enclosed spaces and transmits them anonymously to a server that extracts the data.

The images in this gallery are used with permission and are subject to copyright conditions.