Artist Jame St Findlay takes Ethan Price on a tour of the telecommunication masts that inspired their latest solo exhibition, Harmony.
Now I see them everywhere. We’re living in an auditory panopticon. I spot one looming on the roof of a block of flats situated one road away from my bedroom window. They are spectral, eerie things that, once noticed, make you feel that their very design was intended to cause unease. A feeling of being silently monitored is inherent in their forms, quiet and hidden in plain sight — like a fictional spy, but with all libido removed.
The Scottish artist Jame St Findlay took me for a walk. First stop: a mid-century block opposite Stoke Newington station, where a cyberpunk configuration of miscellaneous antennae is positioned, ostensibly to transmit mobile phone service around the city. St Findlay later described this building and its future-dystopian millinery as one of the ugliest things they had ever seen. Yet it was here that they chose to begin our saunter through a small section of London.
Ultra-quotidian, these gruesome masts that we share our twenty-first-century lives with are the focus of Harmony, a film set to be screened as part of their current show at Perrotin London. The exhibition features chillingly beautiful sculptures and drawings that coalesce decay and comfort, whilst the film, sheltering in an impermanent silver structure, is absolutely central. It depicts the claustrophobic world of a small cast of unnamed “targeted individuals” — people who believe they are being persecuted by sound waves emitting from mobile phone towers. It can mean anything you want it to mean.
Ethan Price: Are you paranoid? Is that why you made the film?
Jame St Findlay: No, but I think I can relate. You become hyper-aware of this element of the urban environment — these things that sit on top of tall structures — and you can understand why someone might question what they’re for. They’re so anonymised and bizarre-looking. I get the conspiratorial mindset that the character in the film has — his belief that he’s noticing something other people aren’t.
I was attracted to making a film about cell terrorism, mobile phone devices, and satellites because they’re everywhere — so ubiquitous that you stop seeing them. But then, as I was filming, I began to notice them more and more. The more you notice, the more you see these little details, and the easier it becomes to understand the kind of mindset that might lead you to think they have an ulterior motive. There’s one about fifteen minutes from here that’s been aestheticised to the point that it’s really ominous.
Shall we walk? What is it that drew you to these things?
There’s a grey area between someone who completely accepts how the world works and someone who totally rejects it. I’d say I’m in the middle — open to hearing both sides.
There’s a specific type of conspiracy I’ve always found interesting. The 5G stuff taps into that — it’s very contemporary. The character in the film is inspired by people who refer to themselves as “targeted individuals.”
Before watching your film, I’d never heard that term before.
It’s been around for about ten or fifteen years. Vlogging and filming yourself has become so normalised now, but it was Bully — who stars in the film — who started sending me these videos of people posting constantly, under the belief that they’re being covertly surveilled or followed, or that someone’s out to get them. It’s a kind of paranoid or persecutory delusion, but it’s not like they’re hallucinating. They’re just noticing and over-interpreting everyday things — like seeing three people vaping and thinking the smoke is being aimed at them, or seeing blacked-out cars and assuming they’re under surveillance. I’ve seen videos where someone’s just jogging past and there’s a caption saying, “This is the third person sent to surveil me.”
There’s a scene in the film where Bully’s filming his feet — that’s almost verbatim from one of these videos. They believe they’re being targeted with frequencies coming through the walls of their apartment that are affecting their skin — inflammation in their feet and knees. There’s nothing visibly happening, but they really believe it. I was interested in what it would feel like to be in that kind of mindset. Here’s the mast!
It looks like an enormous cotton bud.
Yeah! I’ve seen them in black, in dark green, and in white.
What’s your favourite?
[Laughs] There’s an amazing one near Langham Park — like this, but jet black. I wish we were closer. But I’ve been on this road so many times, and I still find myself questioning it — why does it need to be this shape? Why does it need to be right here? There’s this attempt to make it look so mundane that you don’t notice it, with these blanched, nothing-colours that make industrial structures seem less imposing. Like how Disneyland has these two patented colours — “Go Away Green” and “Disappearing Blue.”
Fantastic names. I want to paint my bedroom in that.
[Laughs] But yeah, I feel like I’m making myself sound paranoid. It’s not that. I just totally understand why someone might ask why it’s not bright red.
Why are they trying to hide it?
And so much of this is rooted in “they.” Like, why are they doing this? When you watch these videos, it’s always about some vague force — a government body, a group, or an individual. But it’s never clearly defined.
I’m not interested in poking fun at people who genuinely believe this stuff. I’m more interested in what the day-to-day experience is for someone with that kind of mindset. If you truly believe there’s a weapon in that tower targeting you, that must feel awful. Your reality is completely different to everyone else’s.
Shall we find another one? Take me on this adventure.
I’ve actually got this app called “Cellular Finder”.
[Laughs] Who made it?
I think it was made by a hobbyist, just someone who’s really into cellular masts!
Which you’re becoming.
I guess! Apparently, we’re going to pass two. But they could be anywhere. They can be small and nondescript, but I want the big ones.
I was really fascinated by the ritual scenes in the film, where they pour milk into protective circles around themselves or the towers, and the burning of collected objects. There’s also that recurring image of a man in a business suit suspended in water, which I’ve seen in another of your works.
I’ll just be struck by an image — like a goth on a wind farm. In my last film, there were these anonymous corporate men who would gather and drink from rivers and puddles. I’m drawn to behaviours that aren’t inherently wrong or right, but don’t seem to serve a clear purpose, and they become almost absurd.
They’re these very solitary figures who enact out their own lives without touching the real world.
When I’m making a film, I want a sense of timelessness, of everything bleeding into each other with no obvious linearity. Oh — here’s another one I wanted to show you, but I forgot it was here! This one is mental. [Points to a tall black mast with an intricate design at the top. It’s set against a tree with purple foliage.]
It’s so bizarre, they’re actually everywhere!
They’re so monolithic and space-age. The design of these — the ones on the roofs, like the first one we first saw — is particularly mad. They’re ramshackle, but there’s a consistency in form. They’re like a series of white squares or rectangles that are held up in some way. But the ones on the pavement change all the time. Why isn’t there a standard design? Why change it?
Yeah — if it’s just serving a purpose, why wouldn’t it be standardised?
I’ve never noticed before that this one’s in front of a dark tree. It’s very gothic. You’ll see them everywhere now. They’ll follow you. [Points to another mast on top of a building.] Look at that! [Takes photo.]
Against that doom-laden sky, too! I’m interested in the way the characters dress, with their backpacks. As soon as I saw that backpack, paired with the office suit — both so plain — I knew immediately who these people were, and yet they’re engaged in these strange actions.
I’m really attracted to this idea of the anonymised person. Especially with things like business attire. It’s sort of like a “no further questions” way of dressing. And there’s just something about adults wearing backpacks.
There’s something really seedy about an office backpack.
Yes, a not-quite-filled-enough black backpack… it makes me think of school. There’s something almost a bit regressive about it, but an almost self-seriousness as well. With Bully’s character, I wanted him to look like he’s on a mission, walking through the financial district at night, with a backpack and no one else around. What he’s doing isn’t inherently wrong, but it feels ominous.
Could you tell me about the moment when he’s sound-recording the statue? I found that quite erotic, which maybe you weren’t getting at, but there’s something about the way he’s moving around these two bronze figures, absorbing something from them.
The statue’s on this gangway between the Barbican and the London Wall. I’d walked through that area before and noticed it, and it really stuck in my head. It’s a very strange, romantic, relatively erotic sculpture of these two dancers, alone in this otherwise totally void environment. And that was the first scene that Bully and I did together. I knew that I wanted him to be in pursuit of some kind of sound, and he’s enacting that. The reason I got Bully involved was because he’s such a good mover, so accomplished and embodied.
He moves beautifully with the sculpture. It’s very sensual, and it’s very different for that character. You understand later that he’s quite stiff and brittle.
There’s very little human interaction in the film. It’s quite lonely and insular, but also clinical — like he’s not registering that it’s two figures, just treating it as a material he’s documenting. There’s always an absurdist element in the work, and there’s always going to be some humour. With that scene, I can totally understand why someone might find it ominous or comical. I’m glad you found it erotic.
There are a few lines in the film that really stood out, like “There is an evil song playing all over the world.” Another was, “The elevator in my building is operating like a string instrument.”
The original idea for the film was that it would be entirely about Bully’s character — this obsessive figure fixated on mobile phone towers, and the idea of his building being an instrument. That line about the elevator came from this paranormal investigation podcast. They were reading listener emails, and one person wrote in saying, “An elevator is basically a string instrument.” I thought that was one of the most arresting ideas I’d ever heard — that a building could play itself just from the elevator moving up and down. From the beginning, I really wanted to include references to actual instruments and musicality. That’s also where the piano scene came from — a kind of jarring segue between real-life instrumentation and the rest of the narrative.
In the exhibition, alongside the drawings, there are conservation-grade containers — archival boxes. You’ve taken apart business clothing and carefully placed each piece into them. This breaking down and organising of objects that are usually whole, and assigning new value to something mundane or discarded, feels like an exercise in control. What kind of world is being built here?
Yeah, maybe it’s about wanting to control something, or picking apart the things that make up our reality. I took apart the shirts and suits myself. There was something about that process, undoing something you’re not supposed to undo, that made me feel like one of the characters in the film. You’re not meant to deconstruct clothing once it’s been made. But it was really enlightening, especially with the suits, to see its components. I wanted the boxes to feel like they held something precious, even if what’s inside doesn’t have any clear or understandable value.
The things that seem like they mean nothing end up meaning the most.
Hesse K. wrote a piece for the show, and she really got it. She interpreted the character in the film — who collects objects and finally burns them — as someone who’s destroying things in order to create something to want again, as though the only way to make an object last forever is to destroy it irreparably. If you can never have it back, then you can always long for it. The film is physically housed within this quite oppressive tent structure, and everything in the show is very contained. The sculptures, the film, all kept in their own little environments.
There is such a feeling right now of wanting to take control of one’s own life, but achieving that is so confusing. A desire for freedom from an outside oppressive force, but also wanting control — and therefore power — for yourself. It’s a strange dynamic.
A hundred percent. That desire for control, and the realisation of how much is actually outside of your control. The archival boxes and the objects inside them feel like an image of that idea.
Harmony, compared to what I’ve seen of your previous work, feels less whimsical and humorous. This film feels like it’s exploring an internal wasteland.
That’s also been surprising. I actually thought the film would be more fun, but it didn’t materialise that way. It really feels like the work guides itself, and it didn’t want to be funny.
Jame St Findlay: Harmony continues at Perrotin London through 28 September, 2025.
