Wavematters

Waves matter. They light our streets at night, carry our voices, grow our food, send our text messages. Waves mess with bodies, with cities, with devices — their effects are vague, difficult to put into words, and hard to trace. Between physics and politics, they do not only attend to the spectrum. They are also spectral.
This exhibition explores how waves come to matter.

Waves matter. They light our streets at night, carry our voices, grow our food, send our text messages. Sound and electromagnetic waves are the ever-present, invisible forces that shape social life — connecting people, landscapes, and artifacts. And yet, we lack a language to talk about how they affect us, even as they become matters of concern. Think of the radiating heat that makes life unbearable, the wireless signals that enable dystopic futures, or the environmental noise and artificial light that burden human and non-human health. 

At the same time, we are surrounded by wave matters: speed bumps that reduce traffic noise; rooftop antennas that transmit 5G signals; curtains, clothing, trees and new types of pavement that block, reflect or refract radiant heat. But the connection between waves and their matters is neither simple nor stable. Waves mess with bodies, with cities, with devices — their effects are vague, difficult to put into words, and hard to trace. Between physics and politics, they do not only attend to the spectrum. They are also spectral.

This exhibition explores how waves come to matter. It invites visitors to experiment with three modes of attending to the spectral. A sensory mode that plays with the thresholds of perception through works produced with collaborating artists. A narrative mode that reconstructs contentious scientific theories that unsettle established understandings of the human body and the boundaries between the senses. And an ethnographic mode that presents things that materialize waves in different ways and tell stories about how people and cities relate to them in everyday life. 

Wavematters. Attending to the Spectral. Bodies, Cities, Devices is the result of a five-year ERC Consolidator Grant led by Ignacio Farías at the Institute of European Ethnology of the Humboldt University in Berlin. The research project investigated how different kinds of waves are problematized by different actors in cities and beyond: sound as noise, solar radiation as heat, artificial light as luminous pollution, or wireless signals as electrosmog. It explored how people experience and learn to be affected by them in everyday life, and how these problematizations are differently addressed in science and urban planning.

What to expect

At the centre of the exhibition is the Cabinet of Waves, a multimodal device that exhibits “wavy objects” that were collected during fieldwork in the Wavematters research project. In the exhibition space, each object is set in relation to its own context, narrating how waves are materialized and problematized in cities. It includes, among others, stories of how prickly plants regulate recreational noise in Barcelona, court cases become sites of protest against 5G in the UK, fashion changes in Japan to adapt to heat, or how insects are protected against the light.

Five artistic positions challenge us to attend to the ever-present, yet often unnoticed waves that surround us through our senses. 

• In a video installation, Amor Schumacher and Summer Banks present fragments of conversations about how heat unsettles our everyday lives in different ways 
• Through two works sound artist Mathias Klenner transports the background noise of a square in Barcelona into the main exhibition space and asks us to experience the slippery thresholds of perception between sound and vibration in a walk-in vitrine
• Merche Blasco invites guests to take custom-made electromagnetic instruments around the TA T building to listen to its electromagnetic hum
• Jeremy Knowles inserts us into the perspective of a pond in Görlitzer Park at night as it is disturbed by artificial lighting
• ooooo, a techno-feminist transuniversal constellation, troubles conventional ways of imagining how bodies relate to electric fields through different kinds of antennas

Two interactive wall installations reconstruct contentious scientific theories around the sense of vibration and the body’s bioelectricity. They document the search for a sixth sense — vibration — and the idea of a body shaped by electric currents. 

Events

• Sound artist Merche Blasco will perform on 10 November 2026 at 8 pm, part of Berlin Science Week 2026
• Guided tours by members of the Wavematters team on 10 November 2026, 8 December 2026, and 12 of January 2027. 
• November 27 and 28: an international symposium hosted at TA T’s historic lecture hall on the implications of doing ethnographic research on the social life of physical waves. This symposium will involve conversations between the wavematters team and invited guests, including Derek McCormack, Andrew Barry, Teresa Stöckelová and Irra Giralt-Rodríguez, and others

Credits

Wavematters

• Curators: Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros & Ignacio Farías (IfEE, HU Berlin)
• Ethnographers: Brett Mommersteeg, Nona-Schulte-Römer, Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros, Ignacio Farías/Albert Arias, Elisabeth Luggauer & Margherita Tess (IfEE, HU Berlin)
• Historical Research: Brett Mommersteeg (IfEE, HU Berlin)

• Artists: Summer Banks/Amor Schumacher, Merche Blasco, Mathias Klenner, Jeremy Knowles & ooooo

• Graphic Design: Studio Gretzinger
• Exhibition Design: Ignacio Rivas & Jorge Martín Sainz de los Terreros
• Construction: Ignacio Rivas, Eisenholz & Fanny Welz
• Multimedia Installation: Mariano Rosales

TA T

• Head Curator TA T: Felix Sattler
• Curator for Outreach & Public Programmes: Paz Ponce
• Production: Fanny Welz
• Project Management: Antonia Willisch, Lilli Maxine Ebert
• Public Relations: Frederike Jaedicke-Nolte

Funded by

 Funded by European Research Council (ERC)

Easy Read Version

Waves are everywhere.

Waves can carry sound.
They can carry light and heat.
They can carry radio and mobile phone signals.

Waves help us:

• hear and speak
• use mobile phones
• grow food
• light our streets
• communicate with other people

But waves can also affect our bodies and our environment.

Too much heat can make it difficult to live in a city.
Too much noise can make us feel stressed.
Artificial light can affect people, animals, and plants.
Wireless signals are part of our everyday lives.

This exhibition asks:

How do waves affect our lives?

What can you see and experience?

The exhibition explores waves in three ways.

We can experience waves.

Five artists have created works about sound, heat, light, and electromagnetic waves.

Some works invite visitors to listen.
Some invite visitors to move through the space.
Some let visitors explore waves with special instruments.

We can learn about waves.

The exhibition tells stories about scientific ideas.

These ideas explore how our bodies experience sound, vibration, and electricity.

We can learn how waves affect cities.

The exhibition shows objects from different cities.

These objects tell stories about waves in everyday life.

For example:

• plants can help reduce noise
• people protest against 5G antennas
• clothes can help people deal with heat
• artificial light can affect insects

The Cabinet of Waves

At the centre of the exhibition is the Cabinet of Waves.

It contains objects collected during the Wavematters research project.

Each object tells a story.

The stories show how people experience waves in cities.

Artistic works

Five artists have created works for the exhibition.

Amor Schumacher and Summer Banks show conversations about heat and how it affects everyday life.

Mathias Klenner brings sounds from a square in Barcelona into the TA T.

Visitors can explore the difference between sound and vibration.

Merche Blasco has created special instruments.

Visitors can use them to listen to electromagnetic signals in the TA T.

Jeremy Knowles explores artificial light and its effect on a pond and the animals living there.

ooooo explores how bodies and electric fields are connected.

Events

There will be several events during the exhibition.

10 November 2026, 8 pm
Performance by sound artist Merche Blasco.

The performance is part of Berlin Science Week 2026.

10 November, 8 December 2026 and 12 January 2027
Guided tours with members of the Wavematters team.

27 and 28 November 2026
An international symposium at TA T.

Researchers and invited guests will talk about waves, cities, and everyday life.

About the project

Wavematters is the result of a five-year research project at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

The project was led by Ignacio Farías.

Researchers studied different kinds of waves and how they affect people and cities.

They looked at:

• sound and noise
• sunlight and heat
• artificial light
• wireless signals

The exhibition shows some of the results of this research.