Living in Electric Fields | 5G Environments are invisible Birgit Schneider

Digitalization will come" - this is the mantra of our society. In recent decades the atmosphere of the city has changed drastically. The environment has been transformed into a high-frequency electromagnetic field by the increasing number of antennas.

At present, it is the expansion for the new generation of 5G radio networks that means furnishing urban spaces with thousands of new antennas that disappear invisibly into all sorts of housings such as street lamps, advertising pillars and neon signs. But this development does not stop at the country either. The waves of radio networks are advancing ever further to reach even the smallest niches, driven by mobile telephony and wireless Internet.

In the future, the milieu in which we are immersed and which penetrates us will always be an electric field which flows through us.

5G is invisible and abstract, no one can see the artificially generated high frequency rays. At the same time, almost all of us have a sensor in our pockets with our mobile phones, which tells us like a Geiger counter where the net radiates how strongly.

In my talk, I will use examples from art and technology to speculate on how the change in urban space and atmospheres can be grasped, but also why 5G is a perfect case for techno-criticism and conspirancy theories alike.