Mollye Bendell | Earlid, winter 2019

Weather is fickle. Radio antennas are fussy little machines, too.

Mollye Bendell makes digital and analog sculptures to connect with digital and analog worlds. Her work uses the intangible nature of electronic media as a metaphor for exploring vulnerability, visibility, and longing in a world that can feel isolating.

Whethervanes plays inside these spectral spaces. The project consists of a series of experimental radios in which components such as the tuner and antennae are subject to the wind. Found and constructed objects including weather vanes, flags, sails, and windmills are used to manipulate different kinds of potentiometers and different antenna configurations.

In summer 2018, Bendell’s artist residency at Wave Farm, allowed her to build and to mount her newly constructed radio antennas. They are barely faithful to the ‘signal’ being pulled towards these bows.

Bendell’s spirit static expands into liminal spaces where she progressed deeper into building things the wrong way.

Read Bendell in conversation.