Pulses reveals the invisible digital ecosystem that surrounds us daily. This iteration, captured specifically for flashDrive at InterAccess, documents the digital traffic at the intersection of Lisgar Street and Queen West in Toronto on April 17th, 2025. The visualization transforms these signals into concentric rings whose movement, scale, and colours correspond to signal strength and location context. The colour palette derives from a photograph taken at the precise location moments before data collection began, anchoring the digital phenomena to their physical context. Like photography preserves visual moments, Pulses creates data portraits of specific places and times, archiving ephemeral digital traces that would otherwise remain unwitnessed. These traces—continuously broadcast by our personal devices without our active awareness—raise subtle questions about privacy in an age of ubiquitous connectivity. Collectors receive not only the artwork but also its source materials: the location photograph used for colour sampling and the raw data collected during creation, making tangible the usually invisible digital processes that inform the piece. It invites viewers to reconsider the layered reality we inhabit—one where digital signals pulse constantly around us, whether observed or not, silently mapping our collective presence.

ABOUT THE ARTIST Jordan Shaw is a Toronto-based artist who merges art with technology to explore the complex interplay between digital systems, emerging technologies, and the natural world. His education at Carleton University, Algonquin College, and an MFA from OCAD University shapes his practice, which emphasizes interaction, perspective, and data through mediums such as sculpture, electronics, light, robotics, AI, and other materials. Jordan’s work aims to spark curiosity and reflection, deepening our understanding of relationships, communities, and surroundings through innovative, interactive approaches. By utilizing these diverse mediums, he delves into the nuances of experience across urban, natural, and digital environments. His interest in generative AI, anamorphic perspective, digital and analog interactivity, light and robotics enriches his projects, inviting viewer engagement, fostering interaction, and sparking discussion.