project name
SOUS LES PAVÉS, LA RADIO!, EC(h)OLOCATOR, BANDSHELL GHOST, OF THE BRIDGE, RADIO LAB
project description
SOUS LES PAVÉS, LA RADIO! will be a collaboration between Brooklyn Information Outreach Network (BION), free103point9.org, and local sound artists, which will culminate in three site-specific transmission events.
EC(h)OLOCATOR will be a four-day project during which composer Michelle Nagai will invite participants, whether casual passerby, temporary listeners or artists involved directly in the project, to join her for soundwalks, field recording derives and Deep Listening exercises, throughout the four-day period. These recordings will provide the sound material for her radio broadcast and live performance to be held the final day of the Conflux.
BANDSHELL GHOST will be organized by sound artist, Lex Bhagat. This project addresses the question: Can a building have a ghost? For this radiophonic haunting, Bhagat will create a 3-4 hour wandering collage of interviews, sound culled from documentaries about the Tompkins Square riots and park renovations, and archival sound from concerts. BION will broadcast the collage from a nearby transmission location. The Ghost will be a radio-body composed of several receivers occupying the location where the Bandshell once stood. Bandshell Ghost will be produced in cooperation with neuroTransmitter.
OF THE BRIDGE will be performed by Matt Bua, Matt Mikas, Tom Roe and the Williamsburg Bridge, all of whom live and work next to, or are, the Williamsburg Bridge. The performance will combine found sounds from around the bridge and contact mics on the bridge to embellish its own unique soundscape. The trio produced an LP/CD called "Of The Bridge" that received NYSCA distribution funding.
In conjunction with SOUS LES PAVÉS, LA RADIO!, on the first day of the Conflux nonprofit transmission arts organization free103point9 will host a RADIO LAB workshop addressing transmission as a creative medium, how transmitters work, and the history of broadcasting. Participants will learn about government regulations and prohibitions, the history of pre-regulated radio and unlicensed uses, and will discuss issues such as access to the airwaves and discuss radio's agitprop history and its relationship to the Situationist roots of psychogeography.
name
free103point9, BION, Alexis Bhagat, Matt Bua, Tianna Kennedy, Matt Mikas, Michelle Nagai, Tom Roe
location
Brooklyn, New York
profile
free103point9 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media arts organization focused on establishing and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts by promoting artists who explore ideas around transmission as a medium for creative expression including investigations in AM and FM radio, Citizen's Band, walkie talkie, generative sound, and other broad and microcasting technologies. free103point9 serves diverse public audiences through programs including an online radio station, a distribution label, performance/ exhibition/ transmission series, an education initiative, and a preservation program. Founded in 1997 as a microcasting collective, free103point9's goals during theformative years were focused on the microradio movement fight for the public access to its own airwaves. free103's mobile operations made airtime available to community voices, local bands, and most significantly to a group of under-served artists shaping conceptual works specifically for radio transmission.
BION (Brooklyn Information Outreach Network) is a loose confederacy of low wattage broadcast and webcast enthusiasts currently simulcasting musical and other sound events throughout North Brooklyn. BION will provide all necessary equipment for broadcasting and reception of SOUS LES PAVS, LA RADIO! as well as personnel and space, as needed.
Michelle Nagai is an electroacoustic composer, performance artist and improviser whose interdisciplinary approach utilizes a myriad of physical and aural elements in the creation of site-specific performances, radio broadcasts and installations. Ideas grounded in the theories and practices of acoustic ecology, cultural geography, Deep Listening and expressive therapy play a large role in shaping her creative activities. Her work has been presented throughout New York City, New England and Canada and has been supported by Meet the Composer, the Jerome Foundation and the American Composers Forum. Nagai has facilitated workshops in listening practice, multimedia performance, improvisation and costume design and has recently joined the executive board of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology, a new US affiliate to the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.
www.treetheater.org
Alexis (Lex) Bhagat is an artist and writer living in New York City. He lived in Loisaida from 1988 until 1995, and would still live on that sacred albeit man-made earth if not for the rent. He is editor of the zine, Tactical Sound, and is co-editor, with Gregory Gangemi and Jason Quarles of Sound Generation: Recording - Tradition - Politics, a collection of interviews with 21 contemporary sound artists. He speaks and writes on anarchism, prisons and sound art. Notable projects include: ATM Poetry Opens (1994), Vehicle for Conversation (1999-2001), and Whitman Death Songs (2002.)
neuroTransmitter, founded in 2001, is a radio collaborative utilizing analog communication technologies. Working specifically with radio machinations, neuroTransmitter propels signals through urban membranes and cellular formations. To complement their fixed and mobile frequency performances, nT creates radio-sonic installations, produces music, and converts utilitarian objects into radio transmission and receiving devices. neuroTransmitter has created visual works, performed, and broadcasted live on local bandwiths in public spaces and galleries throughout New York City; Columbus, Ohio; Helsinki, Finland; Aarhus, Denmark; and Madrid, Spain. nT is currently a collaborative-in-residence with the research and development program at Eyebeam Atelier, NYC.
Tianna Kennedy's work explores lo-fi/neglected sounds in the form of field and home/band-practice recordings. The daughter of a Geographer and Grandaughter of a Hobo and a bit of a wanderer herself, Tianna is fascinated with all things transient. In addition to pimpin' her cello, Tianna is a founding member of BION and Special Events Coordinator for Free 103.9, currently working on her MA in Performance Studies at NYU.
OF THE BRIDGE
A collaboration between three sound artists who live and work next to the Williamsburg Bridge. Bua, Mikas and Roe use found sounds from the Williamsburg Bridge, with sounds of their own creation and samples from Sonny Rollins' "The Bridge" song. (Rollins woodshedded on top of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1961 and then released his heady "The Bridge" album.) "Of The Bridge" is both a CD-R (with Quicktime movie) and a vinyl LP with lock-groove elements.
Matt Bua's The Suitcase Orchestra is a self contained, partly/fully automated sound creator which uses precariously prepared instruments, animal talk, electronics, and motors.
free103point9 Operations Manager Matt Mikas is a sound artist with a history of involvement with microradio, nightclub entertainment, and museum exhibition. A sonic anthropologist, Mikas uses turntables alternately as a historian and performer. In January 2000 he curated the sound program for Dave Hickeys "Ultralounge" at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa and Tune(In))) (2003), a one-night installation featuring over sixty sound artists performing live into six radio transmitters. Of The Bridge, a collaboration with Matt Bua and Tom Roe, premiered in Brooklyn! (2001) at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art. Mikass current project "Interactive Audio Response Kit" is a musical composition and listening tool created for two identical LPs. He has spoken on independent media actions at the Grass Roots Radio Conference, the New York Poetry Project, among others.
Tom Roe is a sound artist sometimes known as DJ Dizzy. He co-founded microradio stations 87X in Tampa, FL and free103point9 in Brooklyn, NY. Roe performs with transmitters using multiple bands (FM, CB, walkie-talkie), as well as prepared CDs, vinyl records, and various electronics. He has also written about music for The Wire, Signal to Noise, and The New York Post, among others. Roes writing about Free Jazz in New York recently appeared in The Wires 20th Anniversary publication "Undercurrents" (Continuum). His collaboration with Matt Bua and Matt Mikas, Of The Bridge, premiered in Brooklyn! (2001) at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art. Roe has also spoken on panels for Fairness and Accuracy in Media, the Grassroots Radio Conference, and Anarchist Forum.
links
free103point9
www.screwmusicforever.com/free103/pastevents.html
www.officeops.org/?D=media_station
hemi.nyu.edu/eng/newsletter/issue6/pages/students.shtml