Old televisions and clock radios are given a second life in the interactive sculptures in Emily Francisco‘s exhibition, Alchemical Signal Flow at The Delaware Contemporary. The exhibition also includes videos and documentation of some of Francisco’s other projects, and a few cyanotype prints.

From the museum:

What is a signal? We often think of cell phone reception, or a message sent through a digital app. A signal means many things in this exhibition, it references the transfer of physical data and digital data (ones and zeroes) that happens within technology. A signal can also be social, like how you dress, what brands you buy, or what you throw away. Emily Francisco combines old and new technology to help us rethink how we live with new and changing technology. To many, the mechanics of a harpsichord (a keyboard instrument) and organ are as magical as an MP3 player. Francisco embraces that magic and makes alchemy of blending old and new, low and high tech.

Francisco uses cheap everyday technology and discarded, obsolete (or no longer produced) devices. By doing so, she disrupts signal flows from user to speaker. This action challenges our expectation of call-and-respond and challenges our sense of time. Someone once owed every piece of discarded tech. One could have even been yours. She asks us to think about what these personal objects mean to us at the end of the day. What do they mean to us?

Through her work, she brings together the memory, nostalgia, and aspiration these objects hold, attempting to give them new purpose.

This exhibition closes 8/2/26.