Transmission Arts and Radical Radio: film series and workshop

The Change You Want To See Gallery is pleased to host a film series and workshop on transmission arts, sound performance, and radical radio. Join us this Thursday for a screening of "Work Slowly - Radio Alice", an account of an Italian pirate radio station run by the so-called "Mao-Dadaist" wing of the Autonomia movement. Then on Saturday we'll host free103point9's Radio Lab: Art Activism Seminar, with a screening of "A Little Bit of So Much Truth", a film that documents the 2006 popular uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the people's takeover of 14 radio stations and 1 television station to coordinate organizing efforts. A hands-on workshop on transmitter-building will follow. Presenters include freeradio103point9, Prometheus Radio Project, and Germantown Community Farm.

84 Havemeyer Street, at Metropolitan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211
http://www.thechangeyouwanttosee.org
L to Bedford, G to Metropolitan, J/M/Z to Marcy

Thursday, September 25
7:30pm - 9:30pm: Screening of "Work Slowly - Radio Alice" (Lavorare con Lentezza). Discussion to follow.

Saturday, September 27
Radio Lab: Art/Activism Seminar
12pm - 3pm: Screening of "A Little Bit of So Much Truth" (Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad). Discussion to follow, snacks provided.

3pm - 6pm: Presentation and transmitter-building workshop with free103point9, Prometheus Radio Project, and Germantown Community Farm.

free103point9 Radio Labs provide students with technical skills and contextual background to consider and utilize the transmission spectrum for creative expression. Workshops address four main topics: the history of broadcasting; how transmitters work; online transmission tools; and transmission arts as a creative medium.

Join Tianna Kennedy (free103point9 and Lang alumna); and Maka Kotto (Prometheus Radio Project), and Kaya Weisman (Germantown Community Farm) for a screening of "Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad" (Corrugated Films), discussion, and transmitter building workshop.



About "Work Slowly - Radio Alice"
11 March 1977, Bologna. During the violent clashes between police and youths that end up with the intervention of armored vehicles, a Carabiniere kills the student Francesco Lo Russo. 12 March 1977. The brief history of Radio Alice, accused of having directed the battle by radio, ends with the Carabinieri breaking in. It is the first time in the history of the Italian republic that a radio station was closed down by military hands.

Radio Alice, run by the "creative wing" (the so-called Mao-Dadaists") of the radical Autonomia movement, was one of the most singular and original experiments on language and communication that ever took hold in Italy. Lacking a proper newsroom and even less a program schedule, the Bologna broadcaster made spontaneity and linguistic contamination something more than just a flag to wave. It was a project where political, artistic and existential petitions blended in the common denominator of radio space. Today, after more than a quarter of a century, maybe we can start to talk about Alice again, to try to understand if there was something in that voice that could be used again today.

Radio Alice has won several awards and prizes at movie festivals all over Europe, including the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best Young Actors at the 2004 Venice Film Festival and the First Prize at the 2005 Festival de Cinema Politic in Barcelona, Spain.

Bolgna-based Wu Ming, a collective of anonymous authors, are credited as co-writers for the Italian film, along with writer/director Guido Chiesa, a film director and rock critic who has directed with Jim Jarmusch, Amos Poe, and Michael Cimino. During the 1990's, the main subject of Chiesa's works was the hertitage and memory of anti-fascist Resistance. Sonic Youth named a song after him ("Guido", from the "Dirty" album, Deluxe edition, cd 2, track #10).

About "Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad"
In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people’s use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca.

A 90-minute documentary, "A Little Bit of So Much Truth" captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students in Oaxaca, Mexico took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

Filmmaker, Jill Freidberg, had already spent two years in Oaxaca, producing her previous film, Granito de Arena. She returned to Oaxaca, in 2006, and joined forces with Oaxacan media collective, Mal de Ojo TV, to tell the story of the people who put their lives on the line to give a voice to their struggle. Narrated almost entirely with recordings from the occupied media outlets, A Little Bit of So Much Truth delivers a breathtaking, intimate account of the revolution that WAS televised.

About the Presenters
free103point9 is a New York State-based nonprofit arts organization establishing and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts by promoting artists who explore the idea of transmission or the physical properties of the electromagnetic spectrum for creative expression. free103point9 programs include public performances and exhibitions, an experimental music series, an online radio station and distribution label, an education initiative, and an artist residency program and study center.

The Prometheus Radio Project is a non-profit organization founded by a small group of radio activists in 1998. We believe that a free, diverse, and democratic media is critical to the political and cultural health of our nation, yet we see unprecedented levels of consolidation, homogenization, and restriction in the media landscape. We work toward a future characterized by easy access to media outlets and a broad, exciting selection of cultural and informative media resources.

Germantown Community Farm is a small farm and homestead stewarded by a collective in New York's Hudson Valley. GCF is the response of local food activists, artists, and farmers to global systems of exploitation and oppression. We work to build and support a just regenerative local economy and create vital community.

OPEN CALL: Ecology: Water, Air, Sound

New Adventures in Sound Art invites artists of all ages and nationalities to submit works on the theme Ecology: Water, Air, Sound for consideration in 2009 future programming for the annual Deep Wireless, Sound Travels, and SOUNDplay festivals, produced by New Adventures in Sound Art in Toronto, Canada. Artists may submit works in one or all of the following four categories: 1) Radio Art, 2) Electroacoustic Music, 3) Videomusic and 4) Installation Art. Individual interpretations or variations on the theme are encouraged: Ecology: Water, Air, and/or sound could be done entirely in sound, an audio journal, a soundscape portrait, sound mapping, a visualization of a sound and so on. All submitted works must respond in some way to the theme Ecology: Water, Air, Sound in order to be considered for 2009 NAISA programming. Deadline for Submissions is September 30, 2008.

Radio Theater

31 Down will perform "Assember Dilator" starring Caitlin McDonough-Thayer on Thu. Oct. 16, the first night of free103point9's Radio Festival at the Ontological Theater, with music from Japanther and Killer Dreamer. Admission is free.

Radio Festival NYC 2008

free103point9 presents a fall festival of radio art and experimentation presented during three nights and one afternoon featuring radio theater, poetics, presentations, and noise with live video web streams. Radio Festival NYC 2008 is produced in association with The Ontological-Hysteric Incubator.

Radio Theater
Thursday, October 16, 8 p.m., free admission
31 Down
Japanther
Part of Free Night of Theater 2008

Radio Poetics
Friday, October 17, 8 p.m., $7-10 sliding scale.
Curated by Danny Snelson.
With Alexis Bhagat (free103point9 Transmission Artist)
Kareem Estefan (Host of 'Ceptuetics, an avant-garde poetry show on WNYU.)
and others.

Radio Talks
Saturday, October 18, 2 p.m., free admission.
Artist Presentations from Judy Dunaway and Laura Vitale.

Radio Noise
Saturday, October 18, 8 p.m., $7-10 sliding scale.
Neg-Fi
Noveller
Tom Roe
Twisty Cat: Ed Bear + Lea Bertucci + Tianna Kennedy

Performance and Presentation Details:
Radio Theater
Thursday, October 16, 8 p.m., free admission

31 Down radio theater: "An eye doctor and his assistant become lab rats in their search for xray vision through experimental eye drops."

Japanther: "It's not like they haven't the feigned art-world legitimacy of the "experimental" tag—they once composed a live puppet opera that later ended up as the basis of a video piece in last year's Whitney Biennial—but they also have a sense of humor. As in: their fist-pumping singalong, "River Phoenix." As in: they once bashed out this Young Indy ode while synchronized swimmers calling themselves Aquadoom splash-kicked in time with the beat." -- The Village Voice.

Radio Poetics
Friday, October 17, 8 p.m., $7-10 sliding scale.

Curated by Danny Snelson.

With Alexis Bhagat: free103point9 Transmission Artist.

Kareem Estefan: Host of 'Ceptuetics, an avant-garde poetry show on WNYU.

and others.

Radio Talks
Saturday, October 18, 2 p.m., free admission.

Judy Dunaway will present Sex Workers’ Internet Radio Lounge (S.W.I.R.L.). Connected to the idea of “O-ton,” radio artists in 1970’s Germany who recorded and edited the voices of workers and prisoners to be aired on state radio programs, sound artist Judy Dunaway founded “Sex Workers’ Internet Radio Lounge” (S.W.I.R.L.) a not-for-profit 24/7 webstream of audio art and activism by sex workers. The stream was broadcast from January 2007 to May 2008. It featured stories, poetry, interviews, speeches, panel discussions, original music, and other audio art created by current and former sex workers. In August 2008 SWIRL was converted to an audio archive, which may be accessed at: http://www.jeweltone16.org/swirl/

Artist Laura Vitale will present works that illustrate her exploration so far of literary, painterly, and musical themes in radio. She will also play works from which she has drawn inspiration.

Radio Noise
Saturday, October 18, 8 p.m., $7-10 sliding scale.

Neg-Fi: Minimalist metalloid duets played with severely detuned guitars and walkie talkies.

Noveller: Utilizing the pick-ups on her double-necked guitar, Noveller will explore the interaction between the stringed instrument and several electronic devices, including a hand-held radio, a tape player, and ebows.

Tom Roe: Performs with walkie-talkies, scanners, FM radios, and other receivers and transmitters, to craft noisescapes that sample pop culture.

Twisty Cat: Ed Bear + Lea Bertucci + Tianna Kennedy


Oct. 16, 2008 – Oct. 18, 2008

Ontological Theater
St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 E. 10th St.
Manhattan, NY 10003
United States
212-533-4650

Distribution grant for New York State artists

free103point9 is pleased to announce the 2009 Distribution Grant for New York State Artists providing support for the distribution of new works in film, video, sound, new-media, and media-installation. This grant is for completed works only.

Funding is available from free103point9 through a regrant from New York State Council on the Arts' Electronic Media and Film Program. Grant awards will assist artists in making works available to public audiences and may include, but are not limited to: duplication of previews, screening, and exhibition copies of moving image and sound works; promotional materials including documentation and schematics of media-installation and new-media works. The rental or purchase of equipment for exhibition/distribution by individual artists is also eligible. Artists may request funding support up to a maximum amount of $10,000, with the typical grant amount awarded generally lower.

New to the Distribution Grant this year, successful applicants will also be awarded the additional opportunity to work with a project consultant. This mentor will have expertise in the grantees' specific genre of media art.

Application Guidelines, FAQs, and Resources will be available at http://www.free103point9.org/nysca in October 2008.

Attend a seminar (or watch online) to learn more about applying for this grant:

Seminar / Panel Dates & Locations:

New York City & Streamed at www.free103point9.org
November 13, 2008, 6:30 p.m.
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI)
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011
(212) 337-0680

Catskill
December 4, 2008, 6:30 p.m.
Greene County Council for the Arts
398 Main Street Catskill, NY 12414
(518) 943-3400

free103point9 is pleased to announce the 2009 Distribution Grant for New York State Artists providing support for the distribution of new works in film, video, sound, new-media, and media-installation. This grant is for completed works only.

Funding is available from free103point9 through a regrant from New York State Council on the Arts' Electronic Media and Film Program. Grant awards will assist artists in making works available to public audiences and may include, but are not limited to: duplication of previews, screening, and exhibition copies of moving image and sound works; promotional materials including documentation and schematics of media-installation and new-media works. The rental or purchase of equipment for exhibition/distribution by individual artists is also eligible. Artists may request funding support up to a maximum amount of $10,000, with the typical grant amount awarded generally lower.

New to the Distribution Grant this year, successful applicants will also be awarded the additional opportunity to work with a project consultant. This mentor will have expertise in the grantees' specific genre of media art.

Application Guidelines, FAQs, and Resources will be available at http://www.free103point9.org/nysca in October 2008.

free103point9
www.free103point9.org
regrant@free103point9.org
(518) 622-2598
(917) 297-1537

Conflux curator spotlight: Tianna Kennedy

From Conflux blog:

Tianna Kennedy is a Brooklyn, New York-based cellist, sound and transmission artist, curator, events coordinator, adjunct professor, writer, and the NYC Program Director of free103point9, a non-profit transmission arts organization. Kennedy churns out events like an event-churning machine with the help of fellow activists, artists, and friendly art organizations and is herself an active artist and cellist performing and showing locally and internationally. Kennedy co-founded the August Sound Coalition in 2004 and the Empty Vessel Project in 2005. Kennedy designed and taught “Radio Culture” and “Sight, Sound, and Motion” at Brooklyn College and has a MA in Performance Studies from NYU. Listen to an interview with Tianna Kennedy from Conflux 2008 Podcast #5 here.

Panel on the present and future of the arts in the Hudson Valley

This panel, Sun. Sept. 14 at the Van Brunt Gallery in Beacon, NY, brings together Benjamin Krevolin, board president of the Dutchess County Council on the Arts, Norm Magnusson, known for his allegoric paintings, his faux historic roadside signs, and his Funism.com website, Tom Roe, founder of Wave Farm in Greene County and a leading proponent of the new Transmission Arts movement, currently on view at the SUNY Purchase's Neuberger Museum. Also on the panel are Sparrow, author/poet/critic, Robert The, Kingston-based conceptual and book artist with a background in philosophy, Christina Varga, Woodstock gallery owner and Brian Wallace, curator at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY-New Paltz. The panel, organized by critic and author Paul Smart, will be streamed live on free103point9 Transmission Art Radio via a link at www.free103point9.org, or tune in by pasting http://comm.free103point9.org:8000/vanbrunt.mp3.m3u into your media player.

Part of "Hudson Valley Invitation exhibition, a broad range of media and styles are represented reflective of the multiplicity of points of view held by artists in the Valley. Our region is close to one of the preeminent art capitals of the world and the artists here, many of whom show their work in New York City, are well aware of the currents of contemporary art. Some chose to go with the flow, others chose to follow their own compass. All of which makes for a fertile and fascinating panorama, well worth knowing better.

Participating artists include: Chris Albert, John Allen, Emil Alzamora, Gabe Brown, Robert Brush, Richard Butler, Richard Deon, Laura Moriarty, Alison Moritsugo, James Murray, Franc Palaia, Jaanika Peerna, Fawn Potash, Lyndon Preston, Eliza Pritzker, Molly Rausch, Angelika Rinnhofer, Robert Rodriguez, Jr., Christie Scheele, Charlotte Schulz, Michael Sibilia, Ed Smith, James Westwater, Eleanor White, Tony Moore, Simon Draper, Rieko Fujinami, Lowell Handler, Matt Harle, Thomas Huber, Peter Iannarelli, Gary Jacketti, Steven Jennis, Grace Knowlton, D.Dominick Lombardi, Susan Magnus, and Norm Magnusson.

Where are we? A simple enough question, but one not easily answered when it comes to mapping the current art scene. Especially in a region that’s part of a larger art world whose topology is in flux. The Hudson Valley Invitational at Van Brunt Gallery in Beacon this month is an attempt to indicate some of the more important artistic markers around here. With one work each from over 30 artists, the exhibition doesn’t claim to be an exhaustive survey. Many more eminently worthy artists could have been added had the gallery’s space allowed. Nevertheless, by presenting a healthy sampling of compelling works by talented artists, the Hudson Valley Invitational serves as an interesting point of departure for further exploration of our local art environment. The idea for the Hudson Valley Invitational came out of the suspended plans for a regional art fair devised by Robert Curcio of Curcio Projects and Carl Van Brunt, owner and director of the Van Brunt Gallery. Assisting in the current show are Jennifer Mackiewicz, co-curator, Bart Bridger Woodstrup, who has compiled a selection of local video artists’ work and Paul Smart, critic and author, who has put together a panel on the Present and Future of the Arts in the Hudson Valley.
http://www.agreatertown.com/beacon_ny/hudson_valley_invitational_at_van_brunt_gallery_00076952

Sept. 14, 2008: 3 p.m.
Van Brunt Gallery, 460 Main St., Beacon, NY
845-838-2995

FMC's Full Power Initiative — Shaking Up Radio

From Mike Janssen via Future of Music Coalition:

Last fall, the Federal Communications Commission presented a rare opportunity to revitalize local radio in communities across the country. For one week in October, nonprofit groups could apply to the commission for full-power FM radio stations. "This is the first time in more than seven years that applications would be accepted, and we saw this as an amazing opportunity for those communities that have fallen off the radio dial over the years," says Jean Cook, Deputy Director of Future of Music Coalition, a national nonprofit that works with musicians and music advocates.

FMC identified the more than 200 organizations that could benefit from having a full-power radio station. Along with Radio for People coalition, FMC worked to ease a process that would otherwise be daunting, connecting applicants with lawyers and engineers and guiding them through each step of the process. "In particular, we zeroed in on groups that would bring new and diverse music programming to the air," says Cook.

Commercial FM stations deliver narrow playlists of music in a limited range of genres. Meanwhile, public stations are cutting back on music in favor of more news and talk programming. Genres such as classical music are diminishing on radio, independent artists get little airplay and many other kinds of music are underrepresented. More independently owned and operated noncommercial stations on the air could take big steps to reverse this trend and restore musical variety to the airwaves.

Milwaukee is just one city where classical music is fading from the airwaves. It lost a commercial classical station several years ago, and no public station in the area offers the format. So with help from FMC, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra jumped at the chance to start an FM station.

"The possibilities that are represented by this license are just too good to pass up," says Martin Sher, who as an Orchestra Management Fellow with the American Symphony Orchestra League coordinated the MSO's efforts to prepare the FCC application. Operating a station would allow the MSO to provide classical music to its community, promote its own performances to a broad swath of the city's residents and create a new venue for its archive of recorded performances.

Sher found unexpected enthusiasm among community members for a new classical station as he navigated the many twists and turns of readying the FCC application. The president of Norlight Telecommunications, which owns the broadcast tower that the MSO hopes will host its transmitter," expressed real concern over the lack of classical programming" on the airwaves, Sher says. And staffers at the library in Saukville, Wisconsin, which is now hosting MSO paperwork required by the FCC, also shared encouragement, Sher says.

"We found cheerleaders throughout this process," he says, "and I found that personally very gratifying."

For some of the organizations who applied, starting a new FM radio station fit right in with their current activities. Berks Community Television in Reading, Pennsylvania, which already provides important local programming on a cable-delivered public access channel, was one of our most eager applicants.

A new FM station would allow BCTV to bring valuable community-focused programming to a new medium and expand its audience. It would also allow the nonprofit to include more music in its programming, a prospect that local musicians find particularly exciting, says Anne Sheehan, BCTV's executive director.

"This is the opportunity of a lifetime for us to do something that's relevant and that fits our mission — and may give us a whole new audience," Sheehan says. She confirms that applying was much easier that we initially anticipated. "It wasn't so bad, because I had people like FMC to turn to who could answer my questions and connect us with resources," she says. "I couldn't have done that by myself."

Like many activists and would-be broadcasters we talked with, Sheehan laments radio's current lack of diversity and localism. BCTV's entry into FM broadcasting could help to change that.

"There's a need for local noncommercial radio," she says, "because everything is networks. Even NPR. You can go anywhere in the country and listen to NPR, which I love, but there's no localness to it, no sense of community — unless they're doing fundraising."

The chance to provide a hub for community proved a strong draw for many applying organizations. Another is free103point9, an innovative nonprofit based in Acra and Brooklyn, New York, that is devoted to cultivating "transmission arts" — arts that use radio and other transmission technologies as their media.

A full-power FM station would provide a palette for the unique artworks that are free103';s specialty. From its inception, free103 "has always been, first and foremost, interested in what people can do with the airwaves," says Galen Joseph-Hunter, executive director. Because free103's mission statement claims the airwaves as a medium for artistic expression, "the ability to have a full-power educational station is actually very well aligned with that goal," she says.

Yet Joseph-Hunter envisions free103's FM station as more than just an aural art gallery. The station would also cover local news, politics and other issues and invite community members to shape programming. Residents of Acra can hear WAMC, a noncommercial NPR station originating from Albany, about 30 miles away. "But I've actually never heard anything about my town on WAMC," Joseph-Hunter says.

free103 is now researching its community's needs and considering partnerships with high school, community centers and other educational institutions. "Right now, the local arts community knows about us, and we're collaborating with that group quite well," Joseph-Hunter says. "I think this would be a way for us to engage people who aren't already integrated into the arts."

The would-be broadcaster has already found support among its community of artists and nearby residents, which proved crucial to completing its FCC application. Individual donors stepped forward to help free103 pay for the necessary legal and technical assistance, and Public Radio Capital, a member of Radio for People, provided a key matching grant. Such collaboration demonstrates both an appetite for local, community-focused radio and the strength of the nationwide support network for launching such stations.

Potential nonprofit broadcasters often err in expecting "that you really need all this expertise to apply," says Joseph-Hunter, "when instead what you need is money to hire the people with the expertise."

These three applicants — as well as hundreds of others from all over the country — must now wait several years as their applications trickle through FCC pipelines. Because their applications conflict with others, there's no guarantee that they will get their permits. But as they wait, the promise of providing local service and previously unheard programming to their communities is keeping their hopes high.

Meanwhile, these applicants and others across the country have raised their voices in support of low-power FM radio. A separate class of low-wattage stations licensed by the FCC, LPFMs are another kind of community-based media that can bring diverse local programming to the airwaves.

The FCC has already licensed hundreds of LPFMs around the country. Yet limits imposed by Congress and supported by large corporate broadcasters have prevented low-power broadcasters from reaching some of the country's biggest cities. Legislation now pending in Congress would lift these barriers, potentially expanding LPFM to reach many new listeners.

Want to support low-power community broadcasting? Learn more from our friends at the Prometheus Radio Project. Then call or write your representatives in Congress, and tell them you want to hear more radio that reflects your community!

About the author: Mike Janssen served as Project Manager on FMC's Full Power Initiative, recruiting arts and cultural groups to apply for noncommercial stations and assisting applicants throughout the process. He is a freelance writer, editor and leader of media workshops in the Washington, D.C., area. Visit his website at mikejanssen.net.

Building community one watt at a time

On May 10, free103point9's efforts to bring a community radio station to Greene and Columbia counties in New York went public with a workshop at the Catskill Community Center in Catskill. (free103point9 is applying for a full-power FM station to serve the community.) From Dharma Dailey, who helped run the workshop:

Volunteers of the forthcoming yet-to-be-named Columbia-Greene community radio station set up a tiny radio station at the Catskill Community Center. Though the signal barely reached to the sidewalk outside the community center, people of all ages and ethnicities took a seat beside an old school desk to take turns interviewing family, friends, and strangers. Radios were strategically placed in the Community Center bathrooms, the Community Center art Gallery, and just outside on the sidewalk. We taped a few questions to the desk to get people going — and go they did! From the time that the parade led by the Catskill Drum Corps landed at the front door of the Center to the end of Second Saturday revels, people took the opportunity to listen to each other. A dad and his daughter sit down facing each other. One playfully begins to “announce” in Spanish. Other Spanish speakers stop on the street. Where is that Spanish coming from? There’s no Spanish radio around here! A crowd gathers around the window. More people migrate to the microphone. Discussion. A public discussion. A long-retired reporter asks an eight year old drum corp drummer, “If you had a radio show what would be on it?” After answering, the drummer asks the reporter, “What brought you to Greene County?” People run out from the gallery, “We just wanted to see who’s talking.” Someone comes out from the bathroom to join the conversation. The music in the my neighbors’ voices tells me they appreciate the opportunity, the excuse, to get acquainted with each other. Here it is, live local radio. Click here for a very short movie about the event. Audio by Kaya Weidman, Dharma Dailey. Photos by Corrine and Dharma Dailey. Editing by Dharma and Michael Truckpile.