US-Iran Crisis Escalates: The month began with the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a US airstrike. Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at US bases, causing traumatic brain injuries to 34 troops.
Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 Tragedy: Iran's military accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people aboard, leading to anti-government protests.
COVID-19 Emerges: The first US case was confirmed. The WHO declared a public health emergency as cases surpassed 7,500 in China with 170 deaths.
Kobe Bryant Killed: The basketball legend, his daughter Gianna, and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash, shocking the world.
Brexit Moves Forward: The UK House of Commons passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, paving the way for its departure from the EU.
January 2020 was a month of dissonant emergencies. The signal was not one singular crisis, but a cascade of overlapping, unstable transmissions. This artifact is a simulation of a failing broadcast, a mirror struggling to reflect multiple new realities at once.
The slow, creeping lines represent the viral signal—the story of COVID-19. In January, it was a background process, a growing network of connections that was not yet the main story, but was quietly spreading through the system. It is rendered in a muted, clinical teal.
The sharp, red flashes are the shock signals—the sudden, violent tragedies that punctuated the month. The missile strikes, the plane crash, the helicopter crash. These are the moments that interrupt the broadcast, the glitches that break through the noise with their terrible clarity.
Your cursor is the ghost in this machine. It is the attempt to find focus, to stabilize the signal. But in the noise of this particular moment, clarity is fleeting.