About

Kim Ji-young (김지영)

Kim Ji-young has been intercepting, interpreting, and documenting the Vesper Signal for twenty-five years. She began field recording in 1999 after leaving her home on Jeju Island, South Korea, and spent the following decades monitoring transmissions from Baishan, Jilin Province, China — a border town near the Tumen River where shortwave frequencies carry more than weather.

She returned to Jeju in the spring of 2024. The signal followed her back, or she followed it. She has not clarified which.

Her broadcasts are filed daily. Each transmission documents a single observation — a place, an object, a shift in atmosphere — recorded during her twilight routes across the island. She does not editorialize. She records what is there.

Field Equipment

Receiver — Yaesu VR-500 handheld wideband receiver, 100 kHz–1300 MHz. Scratched case. Original antenna replaced twice. Used for signal acquisition and interference capture.

Camera — Contax T2 35mm compact rangefinder, Carl Zeiss Sonnar 38mm f/2.8 lens. Loaded with Kodak Portra 400. She does not use autofocus.

Recorder — Analogue cassette recorder, make unknown, acquired at a pawn shop in Baishan. Still operational. Used for ambient field capture and artifact documentation.