Nautophone Telecom presents a glass pneumatic communication instrument through which compressed air circulates, amplifies and oscillates. Tracing the histories of foghorns and fluidic telecom systems, the project explores air pressure as both a carrier of signal and voice. Through a network of glass forms and tubes, Morse pulses trigger rhythmic pneumatic processes reanimating lost systems of acoustic transmission.

Foghorns or ‘Nautofons’ are acoustic navigation instruments activated when visibility fails. In the Danube Delta, where land and water constantly shift, the lighthouses at Sfântu Gheorghe and Sulina once emitted signals coded as “SU” in Morse every 30 seconds. These coded air pulses cut across fog, water and reed, asserting presence and navigation through rhythm alone. Their sounds were not only functional signals but expressions of territorial control in a remote shifting landscape. The project documents these coded transmissions to reimagine an alternative hybrid telecom circuit where air is moved in resonance.

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Inspired by Tadeusz Dzewiecki’s Fluidic Voice Communication System and Data Link, a Cold War era proposal for transmitting voice through FM-modulated air streams, Nautophone Telecom reconstructs a pneumatic radio circuit in glass. Two fluidic amplifiers are connected by a filament and driven by an oscillator. Every 30 seconds, bursts of compressed air coded in Morse trigger the system. Signals are transmitted and received, glass horns amplify the flow, and the entire circuit enters a state of attempted synchronisation. Yet, as air escapes fixed control, the system drifts in entropy, its rhythm shaped by the unpredictability of fluid flow.