Mercurius
suzueri (Elico Suzuki)
Artwork Description:
Mercurius: The Case of Hedy Lamarr reconstructs an overlooked history of communication through communication technology itself. The installation takes as its point of departure actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, whose contribution to wireless communication remained largely unrecognized for decades. In 1942, Lamarr and composer George Antheil patented a “Secret Communication System” based on frequency hopping, anticipating principles later used in wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. While Lamarr was highly visible as a glamorous Hollywood star, her technological contribution remained overlooked during her life. The work connects this history to an earlier lineage of wireless communication. In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the Photophone, transmitting speech wirelessly through modulated sunlight—one of the earliest demonstrations of wireless optical communication and a precursor to contemporary Visible Light Communication (VLC). Mercurius employs VLC to reconnect these histories. Forty light bulbs transmit forty archival audio fragments from Lamarr’s films, interviews, and newsreels as information modulated into visible light. Visitors carry receivers that convert these otherwise imperceptible signals into sound, searching for and tuning in to fragments of Lamarr’s voice. This interaction echoes a paradox of Lamarr’s historical visibility: she was highly visible as a cinematic image, while her technological work remained invisible. Likewise, visible light carries information that remains imperceptible until received. By connecting VLC, rooted in Bell’s early optical wireless experiments, with Lamarr’s frequency-hopping system, communication technology tells its own history. It becomes both the subject and the medium through which overlooked histories of women’s contributions to science and technology are retold. The title Mercurius, referring to the Roman messenger god, invokes transmission and mediation across time.
Project Collaborators:
Commissioned by Shiseido Gallery, Curated by : Masaki Oikawa, Electric circuit design and programming : Kazuki Saita.
