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.