Network Operations at Coachella 2026

Network Operations is your friendly, neighborhood, global, multi-conglomerate telecommunications and broadcast company. It is the next evolving chapter of Dedo Vabo's "Hippos", and it represents a frenetic, absurd reflection of our content-saturated age, playful, slightly sinister, and endlessly alive.

The piece is a darkly comic satire of the modern information ecosystem, where media, telecommunications, data mining, and AI have merged into one giant, malfunctioning machine. It is an absurdist portrayal of the systems that shape public reality.

Designed and built from scratch, Network Operations at a distance is a 3-story media broadcast building and antenna farm, covered in all forms "broadcast gack". Antennas and massive satellite dishes, some rising as high as 140 feet, are littered among the building site, assisting in the hippo's desire to control all broadcasts and communication streams within their grasp.

Each room of the building represents a different form of the modern information machine: a tv studio, a video control room, a radio/podcast studio, a cellular bot farm, a data harvesting center, a press room, and a historical display featuring a retrospective of technology throughout the years.

This work represents a year of meticulous design, engineering, and thoughtful planning. Interfacing with the Art Department at Goldenvoice, the physical construction took over 8 months. The entire 3 story building was built offsite, and then lifted by crane, placed onto a flat bed truck, and driven to the polo fields at Coachella. Although it was a terrifying experience in engineering, it worked, and the installation was successfully placed.