WAR

“War” is a near real-time, physical manifestation of the language of conflict. It delivers quotes from news coverage of wars around the world, stripping away context and narrative to present war as it is: familiar, messy, and contradicting.

"War" acknowledges our deep-seated need to stay informed during conflict, but offers an alternative way of engaging with unfolding events. The project collects and displays quotes - words spoken or written in news articles covering wars from around the world. These quotes are delivered as-is, in near real-time, to a set of hand-held devices.

The form of the device references the pager: a tool historically used for urgent communication, for critical alerts, and for untraceable messaging in warfare. In a recent massive attack, pagers intended for militant communication were transformed into explosive devices - turning a means of communication into a weapon. Here, the pager is reimagined as a device that still delivers updates, but of a different kind: not instructions or warnings, but the language through which war is experienced and expressed.

Receiving a new update is an intentional act. A new quote appears only when a device is returned to the shared docking station, suggesting a ritual of engagement and reflection. By stripping away all context except the language itself, "War" invites viewers to confront the reality of conflict as it is spoken. The installation does not offer answers or a single narrative; instead, it attempts to embody the ongoing, unresolved presence of war, allowing the language of those living through it to accumulate, overlap, and resonate.

The project attempts to challenge us to question how we consume news about conflict and suggests that staying informed doesn't always mean following the latest analysis - sometimes it means simply listening to those who are living through it.

This project began as a personal response to witnessing war from afar - reading news from multiple sources and searching for meaning in the language used to describe unfolding events. My background in the IDF spokesperson unit during a previous war gave me firsthand insight into how this kind of language is used not only to inform, but also to obscure, shape, minimize, or dismiss inconvenient facts; to reconstruct data, or twist it to fit a particular narrative.

The research revealed that quotes - especially those from civilians - often retained their impact, even when they were embedded within conflicting narratives. This observation led to experiments in quote extraction and decontextualization, showing that certain expressions can maintain their emotional resonance even when separated from their original context. When many such quotes are grouped together, they begin to create a new context of their own - one that often echoes with unsettling familiarity.

"War" is not meant to be an archive, but an attempt to create a living artifact: an object that embodies the ongoing, unresolved, and often uncomfortable reality of war.

Material choices - SLS 3D-printed nylon, aluminum, e-paper - were made to evoke both tactical and speculative associations, referencing military technology and alternative futures. The installation attempts to balance familiarity and strangeness, keeping it recognizable enough for people to engage with intuitively, but distant enough to allow for curiosity, speculation, and openness.

Throughout the process, I encountered a series of tensions: the velocity of news versus the timelessness of experience; the complexity of war versus the simplicity of language; the need to know versus the capacity to feel; and the ease of division versus the challenge of finding common ground. These tensions are embedded in the project’s form and function, shaping both its technical and conceptual framework.

Python-based web scraping scripts extract quotes from a wide range of news sources across the political spectrum covering current conflicts around the world. Each quote is evaluated and filtered by a fine-tuned language model (using OpenAI API) using three metrics: Emotional Weight, Interpretative Space, and Memorability. The system prioritizes civilian voices and filters out formal, institutional, or overly specific language.

Out of the large volume of quotes collected, only a very small fraction meets the criteria - most are too formal, dry, or context-dependent to serve the project’s goals. This intensive filtering process is central to the work, shaping the particular language that appears on the devices.

The quotes are stored in a Firebase database and distributed to nine custom-built devices via a fully automated pipeline (using Google's Cloud Run functions). All devices are powered and managed from a single, hand-fabricated aluminum docking station, which houses the microcontrollers and serves as the point for receiving new updates. Each docking spot features an RGB LED that changes color to indicate whether a new quote is loading, fully loaded, or if the device is out of the dock. The enclosures are SLS 3D-printed, and each device features an e-paper display - chosen for its physical presence and tactile quality, which felt more appropriate than traditional screens or paper for presenting these kinds of quotes.

All fabrication and assembly was done at ITP, NYU, aside from the SLS 3D prints that were done in NYU's LGA studio and were possible thanks to a generous grant from ITP.

Arduino libraries: GxEPD2_BW, Adafruit_GFX, SPI, WiFi, HTTPClient, ArduinoJson.
Python libraries: firebase-admin, openai, python-dotenv, requests, beautifulsoup4.