Shortwave is a new radio artwork inspired by shortwave radio transmissions and coded and clandestine broadcasts that have been received or transmitted from the Northern Territory.

These include a mysterious number station operating from Humpty Doo, a Timorese radio station that sent covert information to activists in Darwin, and Japanese kana codes intercepted by Special Wireless Units across Northern Australia.

Shortwave is a sonic creation by Sound Artist and Composer Ian Moorhead, made in collaboration with audio-documentary makers Lisa Pellegrino and Roslyn Oades.

This compelling, locally made work will be presented across four days of the festival on NT Afternoons with Jess Ong in an exciting collaboration with ABC Radio Darwin. It will share the festival experience throughout the Territory in an act of communal listening…where radio is the source, the subject and the medium.

First imagined by Ian during lockdowns in Melbourne in 2020, Shortwave is a lament to longing.