Three new free103point9 Transmission Artists

free103point9 works with a core group of artists exploring transmission as a medium for creative expression. This genre includes experimental practices in radio art, video art, light sculpture, and installation and performance utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum. Please click on the links below for work samples, exhibition histories, and biographical information specific to each of these artists who incorporate transmission practices in their performance, sound, video, and sculptural work.

free103point9 is excited to announce the following new
Transmission Artists:

Latitude/Longitude

Sophea Lerner

Todd Merrell

More information:

Latitude/Longitude
Brooklyn-based artists Michael Garofalo and Patrick McCarthy began performing as Latitude/Longitude in 2004. Teasing melodies out of prepared and alternately tuned guitars while electronics murmur in a nest of instrument cables at their feet, the duo weave electro-acoustic dream songs from cross-circuit chaos. In 2005 Latitude/Longitude released their self-titled debut album on their own imprint, Early Thieves. Eschewing traditional arrangements, they favor a looser, more spontaneous approach to composition. Live improvisations are played back and manipulated until they take new forms. The results range from surreal folk and delicate instrumentals to noise-drenched drones. Latitude/Longitude continue to work with diverse sonic materials: test oscillators, homemade cassette tape and field recordings, radio transmissions (FM/AM/SW/CB), and toy electronics (broken and functional), as well as more traditional instruments, such as pedal steel guitar, banjo, mbira, and voice. www.minutesandseconds.com

Sophea Lerner
Sophea Lerner is an australian sonic media artist and broadcaster currently working between Australia, Finland, and India. Her work brings together experience in group devised physical performance with 15 years of experimental radio and new media art into a collaborative art practice which explores mediated temporal experience. Lerner's radiomaking encompasses intricately composed radiophonic projects as well as engineering and production and collectively devised, rapidly executed semi-improvised live broadcasts. Community and creative networks are integral to collaborative aspects of her practice. She currently runs media and sonic arts courses at the Centre for Music & Technology in Helsinki where she has directed experimental open content fm/hybrid broadcast project ääniradio in Helsinki since 2004 and particle/wave festival of hybrid radio in 2005. In 2006 she was artist in residence at Sarai, New Delhi. She is an active member of the foodradio_network which broadcasts monthly on free103point9.

Todd Merrell
Since 1978 Todd Merrell has been fascinated with the imperceptible environment of electromagnetic radiation that shortwave radio and processing can capture, and transform into an immersive, musical environment. In 1991 he began exploring the musical possibilities of this world in a collaboration with Patrick Jordan. The result was SWR, a two movement work that was performed several times in Chicago, and on WBEZ National Public Radio. Composer Lou Mallozzi, of the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, wrote in P-Form Magazine: "It soon becomes clear that the focus of the work is not on acheiving any particular musical moment, but on the ephemerality of sonic transformation itself. Unlike compositions that utilize radio in part for its referential or signifying qualities, SWR is more in the minimalist tradition of relying on the primacy of the material itself. The work is a celebration of the radio as material and of the belief that minutiae and limited systems can yield rich results. But it is also a celebration of the rich, ragged, unstable thickness of analog sound in a world anesthetized by the crisp and clean precision of digital audio." He has since developed these techniques and incorporated them into a larger, more visually and sonically evocative world, with an emphasis on live performance, and the thrilling contingency and danger that such site- and time- specifically dependent work produces. Along with several current solo projects, he continues to work with like-minded musicians and sound artists, and recently completed a new project with Aidan Baker, who joined him in 2004 on a mini-tour of the Northeastern United States. Todd Merrell studied music composition and voice at Berklee College of Music, and with composer James Sellars of the Hartt School. His works have been performed by The New York Festival Of Song, Chicago A Capella, and double bassist Robert Black of Bang On A Can Allstars. Merrell has performed in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Hartford, and at such venues as Knitting Factory, Issue Project Room, Galapagos Art Space, Cake Shop, Hot House, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, Berklee Performance Center, 119 Gallery, Real Art Ways, and Free 103point9’s Wave Farm. He has collaborated with BT, Aidan Baker, Duane Pitre, Casey Block, Lou Rossi, Patrick Jordan, Gary Higgins, Bunny Brains, Blaise Siwula, and Jake Bell, and appeared with Francisco Lopez, Joan La Barbara, Robert Dick, Ricardo Arias, Barbara Ess, Peggy Ahwesh, and Sybarite. Todd Merrell’s recent solo album ‘Neptune’ was released in February, 2006 on Dreamland Recordings, and he has recorded for Whirlybird and Transient Frequency. www.toddmerrell.com

For more information see:
http://www.free103point9.org/artists.php