free103point9 Newsroom

Campfire Sounds 2008

2008-07-21T22:56:00.005-04:00

Campfire Sounds is an annual avant folk festival organized by free103point9. "Free folk" bands perform each year at an upstate New York venue. This year "Campfire Sounds" is this Saturday, July 26, from 4-8 p.m. at Hudson Waterfront Park, with free admission and avant folk performances from MV & EE with The Golden Road, Latitude/Longitude, The Dust Dive, and Samara Lubelski. The Dust Dive and Latitude/Longitude open the show with a collaborative set, performing their songs in broader arrangements, including drums. This year's show is Part of City of Hudson Summer Concert Series, eight shows with a range of sites and sounds from May 31 to September 6 in Hudson, New York. Pictured above: Latitude/Longitude during Campfire Sounds 2006, photo by David La Spina.

Pacifica Foundation cuts Free Speech Radio News budget

2008-07-21T14:03:00.000-04:00

Free Speech Radio News has been given notice by the financially-strapped Pacifica Foundation that it will be cutting its funding by more than $13,100 a month – effective immediately. FSRN's is soliciting donations to replace the funds. Click here for more information.

A-Infos Radio Project returns

2008-07-10T02:28:00.003-04:00

From A-Infos Radio Project:

We've been limping along on limited bandwidth and resources for 12 years now. That's right, we've been online since 1996 which makes us 12 years old this year. We were the first project of it's kind on the internet and our model of open media inspired the developers of the original Seattle Indymedia, as well as other participatory media projects on the internet.

Yes, we've had spotty service in recent years and (as the main administrator of the project) allow me to apologize for that. However, our new site has been designed to remedy many of the problems that plagued our project in the past. This isn't to say that we will now be prompt about responding to people's e-mails -- after all, there are three people working on this project for free and we all have lives-- what I am saying is the new site will be vastly more reliable and give people less cause to contact us.

Now for the good news: We have new powerful servers! Tim Pozar (http://www.lns.com/) of Bay Area Wireless Network fame has helped provide us with ridiculous amounts of bandwidth from one of the most reliable network providers in the country! And I have spent the last couple months finishing a completely rewritten update to the
software that runs www.radio4all.net! This all means that the A-Infos Radio
Project is getting a new lease on life.

Special thanks are due to David Josephson (http://www.josephson.com/) for setting up our new equipment, and for making contact with Tim Pozar and negotiating for our new internet connection.

The New Software:

I will not get into excessive technical details regarding the new software, but I will tell you that this version of the Radio Project software is a complete rewrite from the ground up. It is faster and more efficient. It is more secure and extensive measures have been taken to protect the site from spammers and e-mail harvesters while not inconveniencing our users with annoying anti-spam devices. The site's security has been designed to be effective against actual security threats while being transparent to legitimate users.

Searching and browsing for programs has been much improved, with new ways to find programs: by popularity (top 300 downloads), by license, and by content advisory. The latter is particularly useful for radio stations in light of the draconian measures taken by the FCC against U.S. stations who violate the "7 dirty words" or "safe-harbor" rules. Browsing programs by content advisory should make finding programs suitable for radio more convenient.

Other improvements include a better topic directory and easier topic categorization, the addition of creative commons license support (including public domain dedication, and sampling-specific licenses), better support for international characters, and many other improvements.

In closing, we're looking forward to a long future for the A-Infos Radio Project and we hope you will continue to support us and, most importantly, use our project. And I want to remind you to support us financially or in other ways if you can. This is a free service that has been maintained by volunteer labor for over a decade, but we
still need your help to pay the bills. So, please visit our support page
to find out how you can help: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/support/

Radio activity

2008-06-11T00:46:00.003-04:00

From Marisa Olson in Rhizome:

You may have read about free103point9 here, before. At Rhizome, we maintain a high esteem for this pioneering organization serving the field of "transmission arts," and we've fortunately been able to collaborate with them on projects in the past. In many ways, our missions overlap, as our organizations grew out of a desire to support emergent and often immaterial practices. Free103point9's founders situate their vision of the field in an evolutionary framework, looking at how broadcasting and transmission grew out of shared trajectories with net art, video art, mail art, and other creative forms of distributed communication. The organization frequently teams up with other institutions to take this message on the road and increase exposure for the work of transmission artists. Their newest collaborative project is both a show and a recording, co-presented by the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, in their Radio Web program (RWM). This curatorial initiative "is a radio-phonic project from the MACBA's website that explores the possibilities of the internet and radio as spaces of synthesis and exhibition." This self-reflexive approach to presentation is also inherent in the free103point9 show, entitled "Radio Action III," which takes up "radio" as both its theme and its delivery vehicle. Fifteen artists collaborate to present five-minute tracks inspired by this important device, and a bit of surfing of the artists' profiles on free103point9 will assure you of their diversity, ranging from site-specific sound manipulation to interventionist broadcasts. The recordings are the newest CD to be released in free103point9's Dispatch series and the album will premiere at an event at the New Museum of Contemporary Art on August 7th. Meanwhile, it will be streaming online at RWM from June 18 - August 30. Be sure to tune-in. (CD cover photo by David La Spina.)

Waves: material and medium of arts and communications

2008-06-10T00:09:00.003-04:00

From Armin Medosch in The Next Layer:

The exhibition "Waves" is part of a long term research project which puts analogue and electromagnetic waves into the centre of its investigation. "Waves" uses the process of making an exhibition as a form of practice based research. The overall research aim is to develop a bottom-up, materialistic theory of media art. It is proposed that waves are a very important material of study for the development of a theory of media art, as they are a 'principle material' which every artist who works in the field of media art needs to consider and know about. Waves constitute a material layer without which media art is impossible and whose study therefore is also important for any theoretic effort.

Both sight and sound are based on waves, so that waves have shaped us humans evolutionary, our senses have developed in a process of adaption to that. Analogue and electromagnetic waves are the basic elements or materials for many artistic practices and social applications, ranging from sound (modulations of air waves which can be receieved by the ear drum), to light (electromagnetic waves in the TerraHertz range) and electromagnetic waves (which exist naturally and manmade).

Electromagnetism is one of the four basic fources in physics. Since roughly 100 years em waves have been used for signal transfers, radio, tv and remote actions such as alarm systems, radar, sensing, and many other things. em waves modulated band processed by analogue devices or computers form now one of the major components of our communications culture (from the mobiler phone to that thing parking attendants use to type in fines). Considering that, in this sequence, human culture has become increasingly electric, electromagnetic, and, based on that, digital, the 'waves' are getting very little attention 'in their own right' which is what this project is addressing.

Waves@Dortmund 2008 was realised in a collaboration and partnership between HMKV, RIXC and Ars Electronica as part of Szene-Österreich, an event in spring 2008 where Austrian artists were presented in the Ruhr Valley area.

Experts revive debate over cellphones and cancer

2008-06-05T23:57:00.001-04:00

From Tara Parker-Pope in The New York Times:

Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.” Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: “I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear.” And CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.

April Glaser

2008-05-30T01:43:00.003-04:00

From Bornina Storm in South Philly Biennial:

April Glaser left home at age 16 to work with left high school and worked with a group of activists in Nashville, Tennessee to build the area's only public access, independent radio station, Radio Free Nashville. It was connected to her home. She soon left for Philly to work with Prometheus Radio Project, to build low-power community radio stations and help with the fight against media consolidation. She has a precocious way of getting herself involved with some of the most interesting, community based, independently minded projects and people. She is currently a student of philosophy and spent last summer living in Michigan on a boat working with FOUND magazine. and plans on spending this summer in the Catskills working on projects with free103point9. She will be setting up a 'pirate' radio station at the Biennial to broadcast music and interviews. Listeners can tune in for a few blocks radius, while she will have radio hats so visitors and artists can listen live. She is very informative and wants everyone to know that she welcomes questions on broadcasting, media consolidation, and the wavy spectrum. Above please check out a video Prometheus projects made of their Nashville, Tennessee project, of which April was involved.

Radio 4x4 at Noise! Festival plus Bunnybrains

2008-05-19T21:39:00.004-04:00

This is an excerpt of the Radio 4x4 performance by Tom Roe, Giancarlo Bracchi, Michael Garafalo, and Slink Moss Friday, May 9, opening the Noise! festival that night at Ontological Theater in Manhattan. Radio 4x4 is a free103point9 project with four performers each performing into an FM transmitter, rather than a PA or amplifier. Instead, radios are spread around the space, tuned in randomly to the four "stations" with performances. This is from a YouTube video from Slink Moss.

And this is from Bunnybrains performance that same night at Noise!

Microsoft: we listen to broadcasters, not customers

2008-05-19T21:29:00.002-04:00

From Cory Doctorow in Boing Boing:

Danny sez, "A Microsoft spokesperson told CNet today that 'Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission). As part of these regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed.' Do they really mean that they're obeying the broadcast flag that courts and Congress rejected as being executive overreach by the FCC? The ones they have no obligation to follow?" This is about the defunct "Broadcast Flag," an illegal proposal to have the FCC regulate devices (PCs, set-top boxes, etc) so that they'll only include approved technologies that the entertainment industry likes. The Second Circuit ruled that the FCC couldn't make these rules. But Microsoft's devices are following the rules anyway, refusing to allow you to record your favorite TV shows with your Windows PC if the broadcaster has marked them as "no record."

Mobile phones alter brain behavior?

2008-05-08T16:27:00.001-04:00

From David Pescovitz in Boing Boing:

New research shows that the electromagnetic signals emanating from mobile phones can alter your brainwaves. Indeed, the latest studies suggest that mobile phone transmissions can even affect behavior. In one study, scientists from the Swinburne University of Technology monitored the brainwaves of folks with Nokia phones, er, strapped to their heads. They noticed that the cell phone transmissions boosted alpha waves. In a separate experiment, researchers from the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre observed that sleep-deprived subjects with phones on their heads showed a dampening of delta waves that are markers of sleep. For hours after the phones were turned off, the test subjects exhibited difficulty falling asleep. From Scientific American:
Although this research shows that cell phone transmissions can affect a person's brainwaves with persistent effects on behavior, (Loughborough University's James) Horne does not feel there is any need for concern that cell phones are damaging. The arousal effects the researchers measured are equivalent to about half a cup of coffee, and many other factors in a person's surroundings will affect a night's sleep as much or more than cell phone transmissions.

"The significance of the research," he explained, is that although the cell phone power is low, "electromagnetic radiation can nevertheless have an effect on mental behavior when transmitting at the proper frequency." He finds this fact especially remarkable when considering that everyone is surrounded by electromagnetic clutter radiating from all kinds of electronic devices in our modern world. Cell phones in talk mode seem to be particularly well-tuned to frequencies that affect brainwave activity. "The results show sensitivity to low-level radiation to a subtle degree. These findings open the door by a crack for more research to follow. One only wonders if with different doses, durations, or other devices, would there be greater effects?"

Hudson Summer Concert Series

2008-05-06T00:24:00.004-04:00

Hudson's Slink Moss has put together the Hudson Summer Concert Series, and free103point9 is co-sponsoring the series of eight free shows this summer in parks in the city of Hudson, New York. Slink writes, "A range of sites and sounds starting May 31 at the Waterfront and ending September 6 at the Fountain Park at 7th Street. Experimental. Rock. Jazz. Circus. Kids Rock. Reggae. Punk. Films. Performance. Fun. Diversity!" about the series. free103point9 will attempt to air each show live on free103point9 Online Radio. Here are the dates and performers:

*May 31: Bunnybrains, Family of Love, Franklin Mint, Hexual Ceiling, Neg-Fi, Norman Douglas, Tom Roe, and Slink Moss Orchestra.

*June 14: LoVid presents "Wirefull Flags" multi-media event after the fireworks.

*June 28: Mambo KiKongo, and DJ Tom Roe.

*July 12: J+H Projections (Bill Morrison and Laurie Olinder of Ridge Theater) plus live drums.

*July 26: free103point9's Campfire Sounds with The Dust Dive, Latitude/Longitude, Samara Lubelski, and MV & EE with the Golden Road.

*Aug. 9: Big Blue Big Band.

*Aug. 23: Bindlestiff Circus; The Ping Pongs, and Wolfman Jason.

*Sept. 6: The Dangling Success.

free103point9 Online Radio Top 40 for May 2008

2008-05-05T22:04:00.002-04:00

free103point9 Online Radio Top 40 for May 2008

1. The Roy Campbell Ensemble, Akhenaten Suite (Aum Fidelity)
2. Tall Firs, Too Old To Die Young (Ecstatic Peace)
3. civyiu kkliu + ilya monosov, cartolina postale (Winds Measure Recordings)
4. The Beige Channel, Enjoy Victoria Bay! (Happy New Year Recordings)
5. Rob Brown Ensemble, Crown Trunk Root Funk (Aum Fidelity)
6. Annea Lockwood, A Sound Map of the Danube (Lovely Music, Ltd.)
7. Sic Alps, A Long Way Around To a Shortcut (Animal Disguise)
8. Robert Ashley, Concrete (Lovely Music, Ltd.)
9. Jason Willet, The Sounds of Megaphone Unlimited (mT6records.com
With Jad Fair, Eye Yamatsuka, and others.
10. Various artists, Infinite Limbs (Infinite Limbs)
Family of Love, Teeth Mountain, and others.
11. autistic daughters, uneasy flowers (Kranky)
12. critikal, graphorrea (zeromoon.com)
13. Kenneth Gaburo, Maledetto Antiphony VIII (Pogus Productions)
14. asher-ubeboet, cell memory (Winds Measure Recordings)
15. Cristian Amigo, Kingdom of Jones (innova)
16. Radio Ruido, "False Rosetta" 2x7" (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 032)
17. Simon Wickham-Smith, love & lamenation (Pogus Productions)
18. White Rainbow, Prism of Eternal Now (Kranky)
19. Verdun, Two Archipelagos LP (eyland.org)
20. Latitude/Longitude, "Solar Filters/Mother Evening" 7" (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 031)
21. Jeff Martin + Evan Shaw, Piano Music (Barnyard Records)
22. Frank Rothkamm, just 3 organs (just.3.organs.frank.rothamm.com)
23. Barnyard Drama, I'm a Nawg (Barnyard Records)
24. Lori Freedman & Scott Thompson, Plumb (Barnyard Records)
25. Tatsuya Nakatani, Primal Communication (H&H)
26. Jeff Martin + Colin Fisher, Little Man on thr Boat (Barnyard Records)
27. Cloudland Canyons, Silver Tongued Sisyphus (Kranky)
28. William Parker + Hamid Drake, First Communion/Piercing the Veil 2xCD (Aum Fidelity)
29. Temperatures, Ymir LP (Heat Retention)
30. Mt. Wilson Repeater (Eastern Fiction)
31. Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet, Inner Constellation (Nemu)
Bruce Eisenbeil + Jean Cook + Nate Wooley + Aaron Ali Shaikh + Tom Abbs + Nasheet Waits.
32. Faking Trains, Instructions (Faking Trains)
33. Scott Smallwood, Electrotherapy (Deep Listening)
34. David Watson, Fingering an Idea (XI Records)
35. Stars Like Fleas, The Ken Burns Effect (Talitres)
36. Mike Wexler, Sun Wheel (Amish)
37. David S. Ware Quartet, Renunciation (Aum Fidelity)
38. Jeff Arnal + Dietrich Eichmann, LP (Broken Research)
39. Pauline Oliveros + Miya Masaoka, Koto Accordion (Deep Listening)
40. Theo Angell, Dearly Beloved (Amish)
Scott Smallwood, Desert Winds: Six Windblown Sound Pieces and Other Works (Deep Listening)
To submit CDs, LPs, CSs, etc. for consideration of airplay on free103point9 Online Radio, mail to:
free103point9
5622 Route 23
Acra, NY 12405

The extinct mobile radio license

2008-05-02T01:05:00.003-04:00

From Jose Fritz in Arcane Radio Trivia:

It is unimaginable now, but in the early days of broadcasting, it was possible to operate a legal broadcast from a moving vehicle. Not a relay to a stationary transmitter, but to originate programming, perhaps even while steering.In 1919 I find the earliest reference to a license to broadcast from a car. Alfred H. Grebe broadcasted from both cars and boats with the call letters WGMU. Grebe manufactured radios. the purpose of the traveling radio show was of course... to sell them. they were nice radios, usually a chassis of Bakelite and/or nice hardwood like walnut. Grebe was from Richmond Hill, NY, born in 1895. He also founded WAHG, WBOQ, and other less formal stations right out of his factory in Queens.

His mobile station used a 6-wire flat top antenna but it was hardwired to the frame and body of the car! It operated at 150 meters. He did observe the the spark plugs of the other motor vehicles caused interference even then. In advertisements he called it the grebe Auto Radiophone. Grebe said in a Radio Amateur News article:
"The auto-radio-phone is entirely practical, and the near future should bring extensive developments along these lines..."

In the late 1920s Jay W. Peters was broadcasting in Inglewood, CA as 1470 KGGM. Then in 1927 he loaded his transmitter with a collapsible antenna and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I've also seen images with a rig attached to a bus! He too was demonstrating radio equipment that he was trying to sell. Peters traveled the Southwest doing demos. In 1928, he sold the license to the New Mexico Broadcasting Company. In 1928 he moved to a terrestrial stationary radio license. He went to Reno and tried to start another station near Blanch Field Airport in an Elks lodge. He applied for a license, and got the calls KOH. it was the first commercial station in Reno.

Transmission art archive

2008-05-01T22:31:00.003-04:00

free103point9 is mapping a genealogy of artists, works, questions, and definitions in support of the genre "transmission arts." Artists are encouraged to self-identify their work within the context of transmission art practices. The resulting resources online and at the Wave Farm Study Center will provide extensive reference materials to artists, curators, students, and academics researching contemporary and historical practices in Media Art and Experimental Sound with respects to the topic of transmission. Click here to add your transmission art work to the archive.

NPR's war on Low Power FM: the laws of physics vs. politics

2008-04-28T22:52:00.005-04:00

From Matthew Lasar in Ars Technica:

National Public Radio continues to move aggressively against Federal Communications Commission proposals that would, if not allow nonprofits to build more Low Power FM stations (LPFM), at least let existing ones survive the intrusion of new full power neighbors. NPR is quite plain about the matter in its FCC filings: it stands opposed to the Low Power exceptions, even though they might help keep FM offerings diverse. NPR charges that the FCC is putting feel-good policies ahead of the laws of physics.

"The laws of physics have not changed, and a system of full power broadcast stations serves many more listeners with less interference compared to low power broadcasting," NPR told the FCC this month. "While LPFM stations may advance the interests of localism and diversity, the Commission cannot assume that LPFM is inherently
better than full power service."

NPR opposes proposals to strengthen rules allowing LPFMs to obtain channel interference waivers when an "encroaching" full power station arrives on the scene. And the broadcaster decidedly dislikes measures that would require new full power signals to offer technical and even financial help to an LPFM that they've suddenly squatted on (or squatted next to).

This is a serious issue, because over the last decade the NPR service has expanded from 635 to 800 affiliated stations. Public radio's stance on this puts it at odds with practically every media reform group in the country. But first, let's recap the history of this bitter struggle, which goes back almost a decade.

After years of highly-publicized battles between pirate radio stations and the FCC, agency Chair William Kennard's Commission in 2000 set up some rules to establish two classes of LFPMs: an LP100 class with a maximum of 100 watts of power and an LP10 class with a limit of ten watts. License applicants for this new service had to honor various limits: nonprofit status and a "second adjacent" rule which meant that an LPFM could not set itself up within two channel notches of a full power station.

The FCC established that restraint in defiance of National Public Radio and the National Association of Broadcasters. Both entities demanded that a three notch No Man's Land be thrown up around a full power signal. NPR pursued this goal with particular vigor, going so far as to suggest that the FCC disregarded laboratory tests that showed that LPFM stations without third adjacent restrictions would interfere with its member stations. Nonetheless, the agency stood these accusations down. It concluded that "imposition of a third-adjacent channel separation requirement would restrict unnecessarily the number of LPFM stations that could be authorized."

So the big guys raised hell and asked Congress to stomp the FCC's 2000 Order. Capitol Hill complied with a rider to a District of Columbia appropriations bill that instructed the FCC to put that third adjacent rule in there, despite the FCC's own conclusions.

This was a big setback for LPFM, because it meant that significantly fewer such stations could be licensed in more densely-populated areas. As the FCC later conceded, various "otherwise technically grantable applications" became "short spaced," prompting "the eventual dismissal of those applications." The agency subsequently canceled 17 licenses and almost 100 construction permits "for failure of the holder to satisfy certain procedural and/or technical requirements."

The DC Congressional rider did contain one silver lining. It authorized the FCC to commission an engineering study on the third adjacent problem, which the government did. The wheels of agency process moved slowly, but they moved. A little over two years later the Mitre Corporation submitted a report on the second/third adjacent problem, from which the FCC once again drew the conclusion that the third adjacent rule was not necessary.

Then, on December 11th of last year, the FCC enacted an Order and Proposed Rulemaking asking Congress to permit it to re-establish that second adjacent guideline. Mike Doyle (D-PA) in the House has sponsored such a bill, as has Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in the Senate.

The Commission's December 11th Order also asked for comment on other proposals to help keep afloat the estimated 809 LPFMs broadcasting in the United States. These include more firmly establishing procedures for second adjacent waivers. At present, if a new full power station shows up too close to an LPFM, agency practice has been to consider a waiver if the smaller signal suddenly finds itself afoul of the second adjacent limit. The FCC now wants to turn that occasional practice into a rule, but it also wants guidance on under what circumstances it should grant such leeway. And the Commission wants public wisdom on whether its waiver procedures should be expanded to first and even co-adjacent situations.

Second (and NPR truly hates this idea), the FCC wants to know if the "encroaching" full-service station should be required to offer technical assistance and even financial help to an LPFM that can demonstrate full power interference. This might include paying for filtering technology and other interference aides. And the agency thinks that a full power station should give an LPFM advance notice if the former anticipates interference with the latter.

"It should also be required to cooperate in good faith with the LPFM station in developing the best technical approach," the Commission contends, "including a possible LPFM site relocation, to ameliorate the interference and/or displacement impact of its proposal." In addition, the FCC proposes to raise standards for the kinds of LPFMs that get this sort of help, and seems to be leaning towards codifying these new policies only for stations that provide eight hours of local programming on a daily basis.

Finally, the FCC proposes to use contouring methodology to license new LPFM stations. Contour measurement is a more flexible way of assessing the possible interference of a broadcast signal. It takes into account mountainous and watery areas, therefore offering station applicants a wider range of "new licensing opportunities," as the FCC puts it.

On April 7, a medium-sized platoon of public interest groups and radio stations filed a 23-page statement on behalf of these proposals. They included the usual suspects: Prometheus Radio, Free Press, Benton, Future of Music, and Reclaim the Media, plus quite a few parties you don't come across very often, such as the Forest Hills School District of Cincinnati, Ohio. These 46 groups enthusiastically endorsed the FCC's suggestions.

"Low power radio stations are governed and operated by community based organizations with limited resources," they wrote. "It is only fair, then, that full-power stations that choose to move into the low power radio's community must provide technical and financial assistance to assist the low power station in resolving interference or in its move to a new channel."

In addition, the filing took on the delicate issue of FM translators, which NPR affiliated stations rely on heavily to expand their audience reach. Prometheus wants to limit the number of translators. No entity, Prometheus et al says, should be able to own more than ten translators in the biggest 303 Arbitron measured markets "on a basis that is primary to an LPFM station that pledges to provide local originated programming." In addition, LPFMs should not be able to convert to translators.

Needless to say, NPR sees these matters very differently, and was not afraid to be blunt about its perspective in its filing, submitted the same day as Prometheus. When Congress created the Low Power FM service, NPR's comment argues, it intended these stations to broadcast "where full power stations could not." Thus the Commission should understand LPFM stations as "secondary to full power stations," NPR writes.

From this point of departure, practically everything that the FCC recommended in its December 2007 Order becomes illegitimate in NPR's eyes, ignoring "longstanding policy determination that full power service is the most efficient use of broadcast spectrum." If an LPFM wants a second adjacent waiver, it must first "resolve all actual interference complaints," NPR insists, and prove that "other factors" have not caused the problem. But it should get no help from the encroaching full power station in question: "The Commission has no place demanding that one NCE [Non-Commercial Educational] station reallocate its scarce resources to another, unrelated one, no matter how deserving the Commission believes the latter to be."

And as for notifying an LPFM of impending signal interference, NPR says that's not an All Things Considered broadcasters' job. "If the Commission perceives a special need to alert LPFM stations to potentially significant Commission actions or provide other accommodation, the Commission itself should take on those tasks." In a more recent filing, submitted to the FCC on April 21, NPR also opposed the ten translator limit.

In a sense, NPR has traveled full circle on this matter. In 2000 it protested imagined signal interference from LPFMs. Now it insists that real interference from its affiliates' signals should be someone else's problem.

In its FCC comments, National Public Radio claims that it "continues to support the LPFM service and the Commission's efforts to ensure that it remain true to its original ideal." But a detailed examination of public radio's stance on LPFM will lead some to a different impression. "To the extent the Commission is motivated by the desire to prevent the loss of LPFM stations," NPR writes in the same statement, "we also regret the community's loss of a valued public service, but risk is inherent in the secondary nature of the LPFM service."

Perhaps, then, NPR sees LPFM as a lesser species that, with time, will be driven to deserved extinction. That is, if the Federal Communications Commission does not enact rules that thwart the survival of the fittest.

Noise! 2008

2008-04-25T02:54:00.002-04:00

May 8, 2008: 10 p.m. – May 11, 2008: 1 a.m.
at Ontological Theater, St. Mark's Church, 131 E. 10th St., Manhattan, NY
http://www.ontological.com/

Streamed live on free103point9 Online Radio. Audio and video at www.free103point9.org

Noise! is a sound performance festival started in 2005. free103point9 curates for the second year. Each year the "Incubator" program at Ontological Theater hosts a Noise! festival, a three-night multi-arts event designed to promote interest in new forms of sound art. The festival will feature short compositions and performances by established and emerging artists. Each evening opens with a Radio 4x4 as the audience enters the theater. Radio 4x4 is a free103point9 collaborative radio transmission performance. Four simultaneous audio performances are separately sent through FM transmitters to radios positioned throughout a performance space. Each radio receives only one of the signals, so that the audience becomes an active collaborator in the performance, "mixing" the audio feeds by moving about the space among the four signals. Other artists will perform each evening. Tianna Kennedy, Tom Roe, and Damian Catera will curate each evening.

Thursday, May 8
Curated by Tianna Kennedy.
Opens with Radio 4x4 with Tianna Kennedy + Mark Anderson + Jordi Wheeler + Tyler Nolan.
Lith (Jordi Wheeler)
Diamond Terrifier (featuring Sam Hillmer from the Zs)
Dome Theater (Forrest Gillespie directing "Fucked for Real")

Friday, May 9
Curated by Tom Roe.
Opens with Radio 4x4 with Giancarlo Bracchi + Tom Roe + Slink Moss + Michael Garafalo.
Bunnybrains
Michael Garafalo (Latitude/Longitude )
Giancarlo Bracchi
Tom Roe

Saturday, May 10
Curated by Damian Catera.
Opens with Radio 4x4 with Damian Catera + () + Tom Roe + John Baird.
Skyline
Damian Catera
Andrea Parkins
Curated by Damian Catera

For more information:
http://www.free103point9.org/events/1833/

Academic papers on community radio

2008-04-18T00:51:00.004-04:00

The new issue of the academic journal Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture is all about community radio, and includes: Kerrie Foxwell, Jacqui Ewart, Susan Forde and Michael Meadows on Australian Community Broadcasting; Stefania Milan on insights into feelings and muses of community radio practitioners; Dickie Wallace with an ethnographic view of the students and community members at a Massachusetts college radio station; Jan Pinseler on the politics of talk on German free radio stations; Özden Cankaya, H.Serhat Güney and M.Emre Köksalan on Turkish radio broadcasts in The Netherlands; and other essays and book reviews.

Shortwave show

2008-04-17T22:08:00.001-04:00

1951 TV transmitter backpack

2008-04-15T12:32:00.002-04:00

From Modern Mechanix:

This battery-operated RCA back-pack weighs 53 pounds, including batteries. Antennas for transmitting picture signals and receiving orders from a base station extend from top of pack. Range is about one mile. At rear of camera case is an electronic finder and a microphone for the narrator. From June, 1951 issue of Modern Mechanix.

Low power FM advocates push solutions for spectrum availability and encroachment for local community radio

2008-04-08T22:34:00.002-04:00

From Pete TriDish at Prometheus Radio Project:

Prometheus Radio Project, working closely with Media Access Project, Common Frequency and students from Penn State, University of Colorado, University of Pennsylvania, and Temple, have released a set of comments and report designed to move the debate forward on the future of LPFM.

In these comments, Low Power advocates praised the Commission for actions that they took last fall to protect low power stations from encroachment, and recommended several measures that would further protect stations. These measures included requiring that if a low power station was displaced by a full power station, that the full power licensee pay full reasonable costs incurred by the LPFM. We also recommended that displacements not be allowed to occur unless a channel was found of equal coverage and quality for the LPFM station. Full power licensees had put in several petitions against the FCC's new policies on encroachment, and much of the comment was devoted to disproving their arguments.

On spectrum availability, low power advocates did extensive study of the current state of the FM band. We found evidence that while the FCC's measures from last fall were very helpful, they did not do enough to open up spectrum for Low Power radio stations. The FCC has limited pending translator applications to 10 per applicant, and tentatively concluded that they would allow Low Power FMs to use the contour overlap method for allocating low power stations. However, the FCC did not make a decision on priority between LPFMs and translators, and invited more comment. An extensive, painstaking study was conducted of translators on the FM band, and their preclusive impact upon potential low power channel availability.

Our studies found that unless there was a significant change in priority between LPFMs and translators, many translator owners would continue to have hundreds of repetitions of their signals while the FCC tells LPFMs that there are no channels available.

Earlier proposals from LPFM advocates have focused on limits to the number of translators that any entity can own, or physical distance from the translator to its originating station. Translator owners continue to insist that they are entitled to as many translators as they feel like having, and have fired off a mountain of legal action and lawsuits at the Commission to prevent the FCC from taking any actions, however small, to promote localism through licensing of LPFM stations.

Low Power advocates advanced a plan which proposed an innovative, dramatic compromise. Building on an idea from the always insightful communications attorney Michael Couzens, we have developed a concept that should accommodate all reasonable use of translators while capping some of the abuses prevalent in repeater licensing today. Translator owners could have up to 10 translators with coverage inside the top 303 urban markets as described by Arbitron. Radio stations could have up to 10 repetitions of their originating signal inside the top 303 markets. These first ten would be primary to new low power signals. Any additional translators would be subject to displacement by a low power applicant who pledged to meet a locally produced programming requirement. Appropriate limitations would be placed on buying and selling of translators and other speculative behavior. Separately, the idea was also brought up that translator owners, under certain circumstances, might be enabled to sell translators to groups that could not find another channel.

Prometheus hopes that legitimate users of translators will join us in these ideas for reasonable "rules of the road" for translators and reject the speculators and empire builders in their midst, who have succeeded in gumming up the legitimate licensing system for everyone seeking licenses from the FCC.

Comments also supported the Creation of LCFM, or Local Community FM, a new class of licensing identical to LPFM but using the more technically flexible "contour overlap " method, which would allow LPFMs to do technical studies (similar to the ones currently used by translators). to find viable channels currently not available under the current LPFM licensing system. Stations would have to pay for an engineer to conduct a channel search, and these stations would have to protect existing stations from any interference complaints. The prospect of finding available channels even in some of the densest urban areas would be an exciting step forward for community radio, though our studies have found that availability will be low for LCFM unless there is a re-ordering of priorities between translator applicants and LPFM.

Technical Research by Rachel Healy, Patricia McCarthy, Jan Schieffer, Sakura Saunders, Pete Tridish, Todd Urick, and John Wenz. Legal research by Andrew Christopher, Daniel Goshorn, Michael Hartman, David Wilson and comments were authored by Parul Desai. Outreach for comments was done by Kate Blofson, Muna Hijazi, Megan Sheehan, Hannah Sassaman and Steven Bluhm.

Comments were endorsed by:
PROMETHEUS RADIO PROJECT
NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION
RECLAIM THE MEDIA
COMMON CAUSE
UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION, INC.
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF COMMUNITY BROADCASTERS
FREE PRESS
BENTON FOUNDATION
NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
NATIVE PUBLIC MEDIA
CONSUMERS UNION
FUTURE OF MUSIC COALITION
CCTV CENTER FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY
CENTER FOR DIGITAL DEMOCRACY
MEDIA ALLIANCE
COMMON FREQUENCY
MEDIA MOBILIZING PROJECT
KFOK-LP, KFOK COMMUNITY RADIO, GEORGETOWN, CA
KOWS-LP AND THE OCCIDENTAL ARTS AND ECOLOGY CENTER,
OCCIDENTAL, CA
KPYT-LP, PASQUA-YAQUI INDIAN TRIBE, TUSCON, AZ
KYRS-LP, THIN AIR COMMUNITY RADIO, SPOKANE, WA
MEDIA BRIDGES, CINCINNATI, OH
MONTAGUE COMMUNITY TV, MONTAGUE, MA
WCNH-LP, HIGHLANDS COMMUNITY BROADCASTING, CONCORD, NH
WCOM-LP, COMMUNITY RADIO OF CARRBORO, CARRBORO, NC
WEZU-LP, ROANOKE RAPIDS, NC
WCRX-LP, BEXLEY PUBLIC RADIO FOUNDATION, BEXLEY, OH
WPVM-LP, MOUNTAIN AREA INFORMATION NETWORK, ASHEVILLE, NC
WRFN-LP, RADIO FREE NASHVILLE, PASQUO, TN
WSCA-LP, PORTSMOUTH COMMUNITY RADIO, PORTSMOUTH, NH
WXOJ-LP, VALLEY FREE RADIO, NORTHAMPTON, MA
AUSTIN AIRWAVES, INC., AUSTIN, TX
CHIRP-CHICAGO INDEPENDENT RADIO PROJECT
NEW MEXICO MEDIA LITERACY PROJECT
KDRT-LP, DAVIS COMMUNITY RADIO, DAVIS, CA
KREV-LP, 104.7, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF ESTES PARK, CO
KXRG-LP, HONOLULU, HI
WXCS-LP, CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY RADIO ASSOCIATION,
CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, PA
WCRS-LP, SIMPLY LIVING, COLUMBUS, OH
WRYR-LP, WRYR COMMUNITY RADIO, SHERWOOD, MD
WXBH-LP, LOUISVILLE COMMUNITY RADIO, LOUISVILLE, KY
KPCN-LP, PINEROS Y CAMPESINOS UNIDOS DEL NOROESTE, WOODBURN, OR
MULTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN OREGON, KSKQ COMMUNITY RADIO
WIDE-LP MADISON, WI
FOREST HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT, CINCINNATI, OH
KKDS-LP, BLUE OX YOUTH AND COMMUNITY RADIO, EUREKA, CA
WSLR-LP, Sarasota Local Radio, Sarasota, FL
KLDK-LP, Embudo Valley Community Library, Dixon, NM
KOCZ-LP, Southern Development Foundation, Opelousas, LA

The Comments are available at the Electronic Comment Filing system page on the FCC's website, and will be up on prometheus' website soon.

F.C.C. chairman rejects Skype petition

2008-04-01T20:24:00.003-04:00

From The Associated Press via The New York Times:

The Federal Communications Commission should reject a petition by eBay Inc.'s Skype division to require wireless operators to allow any device on their networks, the agency's chairman said Tuesday.

To applause, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told an audience at the CTIA Wireless trade show that the industry's recent push toward openness makes such a rule unnecessary. Skype, which provides free voice calls and videoconferencing over Internet connections, asked the commission in February 2007 to apply the 1968 Carterfone decision to wireless networks. The decision opened AT&T's wireline network to phones not made by the monopoly phone company. Martin cited Verizon Wireless' decision to open its network to any device or application by the end of this year, and the participation by T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel Corp. in Google Inc.'s Open Handset Alliance, which is developing new software for phones.

''In light of the industry's embrace of this more open approach, I think it's premature for the commission to place any other requirements on these networks,'' Martin said. ''Today I'm going to circulate to my fellow commissioners an order dismissing the petition by Skype that would apply Carterfone requirements to existing wireless networks.'' EBay said it was disappointed in Martin's statement. Recent industry changes were positive, but incomplete, the company said Tuesday. The petition was meant to protect consumers' rights ''to use any application and any device on a wireless network,'' eBay said in a statement.

''While we are cautiously optimistic that the carriers will deliver greater openness, unfortunately, if the FCC acts on the chairman's recommendation, it will have given up the tools to protect consumers if they do not,'' said Christopher Libertelli, a director of government affairs for Skype. Martin's order would need the support of two other commissioners to take effect, support that's likely to come from the two Republican appointees.

Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps criticized the chairman's move. ''This is not the time for the FCC to declare victory and withdraw from the fight for open wireless networks,'' Copps said in a statement. ''While we are all encouraged by preliminary commitments from some of the major carriers, we haven't seen the details yet on how they are going to proceed -- and the devil is always in the details, isn't it?'' The FCC did apply open-access requirements to a segment of the 700 megahertz spectrum it recently auctioned for a total of $19.6 billion. Verizon Wireless bought most of the airwaves set off for open access.

Distant stations and home entertainment hi-jinks

2008-03-30T22:43:00.001-04:00

Week Two of BYOTV welcomes Brooklyn, NY’s free103point9 into the airspace with a collection of works from their affiliated transmission artists! Founded in 1997, free103point9 is a nonprofit arts organization focused on establishing and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts. This genre encompasses a diversity of practices and media working with the idea of transmission or the physical properties of the electromagnetic spectrum. Several transmission artists are featured in this week of BYOTV, expect exciting orchestrations of/in the electromagnetic environment! From shortwave symphonies in Tom Roe’s Snowstorm and Todd Merrell’s analog elegy The Last Transmission to Tianna Kennedy and Chad Laird’s Frankensteinian foray 18 19 20, LoVid’s CCRT Transcontinental Streaming Performance and other works, these transmissions are high-intensity!

Also! eClECTiC ELeCTRoNiCs!! On Saturday April 5th, 7pm and FREE!!

The Video Gentlemen will host their first “in-studio” event as part of BYOTV. A live showcase entitled Eclectic Electronics, this event will unfold in real-time. Improvisation and suspense await…anything could happen! Bring your own TV or use one in the gallery to tune in to the broadcast! Audience members can call-in to ask questions! The guests this eve are the audio-visual artists behind such local and regional acts as Instinct Control, Disjunct and Warning Broken Machine. Tonight, unfathomable televisual trajectories are explored as home entertainment systems are turned inside out, short-circuited and rewired to reveal new audio-visual capabilities. Pursuing circuit-bending and other vernacular electronic arts, Portland’s Ryan Dunn, Eugene’s Don Haugen and special guests engage in discussion and demonstration of these curious pursuits

Two job openings at Prometheus Radio Project

2008-03-27T20:29:00.003-04:00

The Prometheus Radio Project is hiring for two permanent full time jobs -- a Station Support Organizer and a Campaign Director. Please read the e-mail below for short descriptions of our organization, of the jobs, and for details on what you'll need to send us to apply. Full job descriptions can be found on our website:
http://www.prometheusradio.org. Send all materials to jobs @ prometheusradio.org with the appropriate job mentioned in the subject line.

The Prometheus Radio Project is a grassroots organization that works to expand and protect community radio stations, and to promote a more democratic and accountable media in the United States and around the world. From Black Panther-led community centers in Tanzania to farmworker groups in Oregon, we help groups build their own radio stations as tools for their vital social justice organizing.

Every day, Prometheus advocates for these groups and their stations, helps them organize with allies near and far for their rights, and works with them to keep their stations thriving and to help leaders teach new radio pioneers the skills needed to own your own media. Prometheus helps community groups navigate the Federal Communications Commission and the radio licensing process, and we provide technical assistance to groups building radio stations. Prometheus also advocates in Congress and at the FCC to protect community radio, and we actively participate in the broader campaign for a better media. Prometheus are tireless in their fight to make community radio stations and other appropriate technologies available to every neighborhood, every city, every town that needs them.

Airwaves Up for Grabs: How much free space is left in the broadcast spectrum?

2008-03-27T16:10:00.004-04:00

From Chris Wilson in Slate:

Just a day after Verizon Wireless spent nearly $10 billion in its bid for a valuable slice of the airwaves last week, Google asked the Federal Communications Commission to open up other unused pieces of the spectrum for wireless broadband. The plan calls for allowing companies like Google and Microsoft to beam wireless Internet access on frequencies between those allocated for television channels—in the so-called "white space"—as well as frequencies reserved for channels that don't exist in a given area. How much of the broadcast spectrum is still up for grabs?

It depends where you are. The "broadcast spectrum" refers to a portion of the full electromagnetic spectrum that is ideal for telecommunication, with frequencies much lower than infrared or visible light. Federal law grants the FCC the authority to determine who can broadcast on which frequencies between 9 kHz and 400 GHz, i.e. the entire range of radio waves and microwaves, to prevent interference between stations. For example, the 410 MHz band is reserved for radio astronomy, while the range from 88 to 108 MHz is for FM radio. (If the government didn't keep track of who broadcast in which frequencies, there would be tremendous interference between broadcasts, making a clear signal very difficult to find in congested areas.) But frequencies allocated by the FCC aren't always in use. Whether a given region of the spectrum is occupied depends on the size and demand of the local population. An urban area with a lot of broadcast stations might fill up most of the spectrum allocated for radio and television, while a rural area would leave much of it unused.

Google's white-space plan concerns television broadcast frequencies, which are divided up by channel throughout the spectrum. The chunks that the FCC just auctioned off to Verizon and others, in the 700 to 800 MHz range, have long been reserved for television stations broadcasting analog signals. But once TV broadcasting goes fully digital in February 2009, the stations will clear out of those frequencies. Meanwhile, companies are interested in using parts of the spectrum that are already allocated, but not always occupied. To accomplish this, they'd need to produce devices that can search for competing signals and suss out any frequencies that happen to be vacant. Proponents like Google say the vast majority of the airwaves go unused most of the time and will remain so until these devices are widespread.

So far, early testing of these "White Space Prototype Devices" has not gone particularly well. In an initial round conducted in July 2007, two prototypes were either unable to detect competing signals or detected signals that were not actually present. (Microsoft claims they sent a defective version of their model to the FCC.) This poses a real problem for the white-space plan: If a device tries to initiate a broadcast at the same frequency as an existing signal that it failed to detect, it could cause interference. Digital broadcasts might begin to skip or freeze, like a scratched DVD. Opponents of the white-space plan, including the National Association of Broadcasters, cite these reports as evidence that the technology is not ready for public consumption. The FCC is currently conducting a second round of tests.

Off the Grid

2008-03-26T23:37:00.006-04:00

March 30, 2008 – June 1, 2008
at Neuberger Museum of Art
Purchase College, SUNY
735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10277
http://www.neuberger.org/

Off The Grid features contemporary works which formally and/or conceptually challenge conventional and commercial infrastructures.

Checklist of exhibited works:

Matt Bua
World Grid – Square World, 2008
ink, collage, paint, pencil on paper
39 x 63 1/2 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York.

Benjamin Cohen, Dylan J. Gauthier, and Stephan von Muehlen
Mare Liberum, 2008
blueprint, distributed broadsheet, boat
broadsheet: 24 x 36 inches, boat: 12 feet
Courtesy of the artists.

EcoArtTech: Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint
Environmental Risk Assessment Rover - AT, 2008
solar panels, recycled shipping pallets, industrial garden wagon, video projector, MAC-mini computer, GPS, WiFi, found built and natural surfaces
Courtesy of the artists.

eteam International Airport Montello, 2007-08
three-channel projection, map, figures, photographs
Courtesy of the artists.

Max Goldfarb
Ambulant Transceivers, 2008
vintage first-aid kits made into two-way radios
Courtesy of the artist.

Louis Hock
Nightscope Series, 1985-2003
digital pigment prints
17 x 24 inches each
Courtesy of the artist.

Louis Hock
Feral, 2004
two-channel video installation
sound: Louis Hock and Peter Otto
Courtesy of the artist.

Nina Katchadourian
Quit Using Us, 2002
c-print mounted on aluminum
18 x 96 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Sara Meltzer Gallery.

Nina Katchadourian
Ant Static, 2003
video loop with sound
Courtesy of the artist and Sara Meltzer Gallery.

Kristin Lucas
More Melting, 2008
wax, wick, fire
Courtesy of the artist.

Joe McKay
Hi Hat Phone, 2007
cell phone, high hat stand, wood, speakers
Courtesy of the artist.

Trevor Paglen
Workers / Las Vegas, NV / Distance – 1 mile, 2006
from the series Limit Telephotography
video
Courtesy of the artist and Bellwether Gallery, New York.

Trevor Paglen
Chemical and Biological Weapons Proving Ground / Dugway, UT / Distance – 42 miles /
10:51 a.m., 2005
from the series Limit Telephotography
C-print, 3 from an edition of 5
50 x 50 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Bellwether Gallery, New York.

Trevor Paglen
Unidentified Light Source / Cactus Flats, NV / Distance – 17 miles / 9:45 p.m., 2007
from the series Limit Telephotography
C-print, 1 from an edition of 5
30 x 36 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Bellwether Gallery, New York.

Temporary Services
Personal Plastic, 2007
photocopied and offset publications, mounted photographs, banners made from plastic
bags, unwanted plastic bags
Courtesy of the artists.

Seth Weiner
Cryptographic Payphone, 2008
interactive payphone, chaotic motion system
63 x 15 x 10 inches
Courtesy of the artist.

Bart Bridger Woodstrup
Gathering Lore, 2008
computer, custom video software, electronic sensors, weather
Courtesy of the artist.

Co-presented by the Neuberger Museum of Art and free103point9. Curated by Jacqueline Shilkoff (Neuberger Museum) and Galen Joseph-Hunter, Tianna Kennedy, Tom Roe (free103point9).

Curators’ Statements

Has humankind’s irresponsible production and consumption of energy and resources reached its peak? While regulatory agencies scramble to meet and control the demands of a wireless-obsessed market, a burgeoning urgency about the need to be ecologically responsible has emerged. Off The Grid presents work by thirteen artists examining and reacting to these currents. Works on view propose alternate territories. They repurpose, reuse, and recast communication devices, consumer byproducts, and environmental data. Our culture has long relied on creative practice to invent, innovate, and inspire. Here, the participating artists do so with works that inform, alarm, and entertain.
– Galen Joseph-Hunter

Most of us live, work, and play on the grid. The artists in Off The Grid do not present utopian solutions to complex problems (unsustainability, overconsumption, waste, alienation), but rather invite us all to reinvent, reimagine, and subvert our daily practices through accessible work completed on a human scale. I've enjoyed my conversations with the artists in this exhibition and have been reminded that cultural gridlock is best addressed not with sweeping gestures and apocalyptic arguments, but by working within, around, and perhaps a little outside expectations of art and engagement.
-Tianna Kennedy

The grid is a shifting network of power, distributing social, ecological and intellectual resources. Individuals have agency to engage or withdraw, privatize or empower, collude or disclose. By reevaluating what resources exist and how they are allocated, we redefine our collective identity and personal ideology. It is hopeful that art as activism, as intervention, can produce awareness and change.
-Jacqueline Shilkoff

For more information see:
http://www.free103point9.org/events/1678/

((((( ECOARTTECH EVENTS FOR OFF THE GRID )))))

March 27, 2008: 7 p.m. – March 29, 2008
at Neuberger Museum of Art
Purchase College, SUNY, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10277
http://www.neuberger.org/
http://www.ecoarttech.net/

Thursday, March 27
Friday, March 28
Saturday, March 29
Meet at the Neuberger Museum of Art at 7 p.m.

Join EcoArtTech (Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint) for three evenings of performances with the Environmental Risk Assessment Rover–AT (ERAR–AT), a mobile, solar-powered, networked video installation that will accumulate and aggregate the environmental threats and risks that Purchase residents face everyday.

What kind of environmental risks does Purchase face? How far is the closest superfund site or nuclear power plant or agribusiness? How do the 148 industrial chemicals already in every American human body interact with the synthetic hormones and antibiotics in the dairy products we eat? How many chemicals are in human breast milk? How do the chemicals in your toothpaste interact with the pesticides on your food? Why has modernity, which was supposed to create a sense of security, produced more anxiety and threats than ever? Can scientific data and research help us understand the “riskiness” of contemporary life?

ERAR-AT performs the difficulty of perceiving, evaluating, and understanding risk scenarios and presents an assessment of its given locale by producing a unique fourteen-tiered threat level embedded live within video projections onto local natural and architectural surfaces.

“Sooner rather than later, one comes up against the law that so long as risks are not recognized scientifically, they do not exist--at least not legally, medically, technologically, or socially, and they are thus not prevented, treated or compensated for. No amount of collective moaning can change this, only science. Scientific judgment's monopoly on truth therefore forces the victims themselves to make use of all the methods and means of scientific analysis in order to succeed with their claims.”
—German risk theorist Ulrich Beck

For more information see:
http://www.free103point9.org/events/1906/

((((( OFF THE GRID: LIVE PERFORMANCES )))))

April 2, 2008: 4 p.m. – 8 p.m.
at Neuberger Museum of Art
Purchase College, SUNY, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10277
http://www.neuberger.org/

Curated by: free103point9. In conjunction with the exhibition Off The Grid, April 2 will feature a day of live performances by artists whose work subvert and circumvent conventional infrastructures.

4 p.m.: Radio 4x4
Four performers -- Joshua Fried, Matt Bua, Alexis Bhagat, and Tom Roe -- perform into four transmitters with performances transmitted to radios throughout the performance area. Audiences are encouraged to walk among the radios, "mixing" the collective and individual improvised performances. For this Radio 4x4, performers will all use battery-powered equipment, and all transmitters and radios will also not be plugged in. Brief explanation and discussion of Radio 4x4 with the artists after performance.
http://www.free103point9.org/transmissionprojects/

4:45: Joshua Fried, Radio Wonderland.
Fried performs his "Radio Wonderland" show with a car battery.

5:30 p.m.: Jeff Stark, Secret Dinner
The Secret Dinner project is just that. The dinners are collaborative and they happen in clandestine spaces. The first was in a grain elevator in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 2006, and we lowered a singer into an echoey steel silo. The second was the site of the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, where we suspended an aerialist from the massive steel Unisphere. And at the third, we ate in the Freedom Tunnel, under Riverside Park in Manhattan. The Secret Dinner project was influenced by Dark Passage, a group of New York explorers, and the Suicide Club, a long defunct group of San Francisco pranksters. The project is a reaction to a culture of permission, including expensive venues, city permits, and institutional funding. It reminds participants that the most important thing is doing the thing, and that it's possible to create work that compromises only to logistics. This talk will feature gorgeous photos by Tod Seelie that document the project.

6:15 p.m.: Matt Bua.
Artist talk.

Sunrise to Sunset:
Mare Liberum workshop. Mare Liberum Sunup-Sundown Build A Boat Workshop: Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier, and Stephan von Muehlen will construct a 12' Grand Banks dory over the course of a day using materials salvaged from construction sites, basic tools and old-time intuition. The artists will be available to discuss the project over pauses for lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.

Earlier in the day:
There will be a Kites are for Peace exhibition. Kites are For Peace and Love is a one-day social engagement with the surrounding Westchester community. It is an open invitation to come together to make and fly kites in the wind and sun, all the while keeping in mind that the same wind power that fuels a kite, can also generate our electricity. Information will be on site relating to simple and effective ways that we as individuals can make a substantial difference in the path toward environmental sustainability. In addition, there will be kite-making workshops held at the Neuberger Museum of Art leading up to the event. This event is organized by John Daquino.

For more information see:
http://www.free103point9.org/events/1860/

For more information about all the "Off the Grid" shows, see:
http://www.free103point9.org/