AN INTERVIEW WITH FREE103POINT9

By Nick Stillman

free103point9 has an array of goals toward which it is perpetually working, each ultimately focused on expanding the scope of radio's possibilities and advancing the genre of Transmission Arts. The nonprofit organization's online radio transmissions introduce audiences to aggressive and challenging contemporary music and also include diverse sets like Field Recordings (found sounds, weird abstract noise) and live performances from artists visiting free103point9's new Greene County, NY Wave Farm site. A pioneering Transmission Arts presenter, free103point9 originated in Brooklyn, in 1997, as a quasi-collective of artists, musicians, and community members dedicated to providing an airwave alternative to corporate radio. The organization's center has recently migrated north, to Wave Farm, offering them a vastly greater amount of physical space. They have implemented an artist residency program, and by 2007 (their tenth anniversary) will have compleed the construction of a study center, studio, and archive dedicated to Transmission Arts. Over the course of several days, NYFA Current Editor and Artforum.com contributor Nick Stillman exchanged emails with Galen Joseph-Hunter and Tom Roe, Executive Director and Program Director, respectively, of this dedicated, vital organization.

Nick Stillman: Let's begin by talking about how renegade transmission has changed from 1997 to now, specifically because of online radio. Has it tarnished the romance of piate radio? Or, because it's difficult to regulate and can be heard all over the world, is online radio nothing but beneficial?

Tom Roe: During the early years of free103point9, we thought of the organization as something akin to a library, and most weekends some different art organization or collective would come to borrow the transmitting equipment to microcast whatever it was they did. We eventually found we could be of more use to artists acting as a high-profile nonprofit media arts organization thanas a clandestine collective with civil disobedience as its main modus operandi. Thanks to all the pirates, lawyers, and political novices who lobbied Congress, went on the air, and challenged laws, low-power FM stations are now legal in the United States. We think a more important fight now is to get the content of radio to be more interesting. This is less a political battle and more of a culture war, or ideological shift. Radio should be endlessly different, richly creative, and interesting to listen to So we have set out to present radio projects that inspire others and start a dialogue about the lack of creativity on the airwaves. Online radio is a good way to build audiences, which is the goal of most arts organizations. Where before we might reach ten or fifteen blocks, anyone with economic means around the world can listen now.

NS: The free103point9 Gallery (http://www.free103point9.org/gallery.php) continues on in Southside Williamsburg, your organization hosts music festivals in the neighborhood and much of your activity is accessible from the non-site that is transmission. To what degree will the expanse of space at the new Wave Farm site further free103point9's activities and what were the motivating factors behind the relocation?

Galen Joseph-Hunter: The topography of the Wave Farm property includes meadows, streams, ponds, forest paths, and views of the Catskill Mountains. This stark contrast to the environment of New York City and other urban locations provides an important comparative conext for artists working with the airwaves and audiences experiencing these works. That is not to say we are lessening our in activities in the city. While public programs at the free103point9 Gallery have taken a bit of a hiatus, activities have remained vibrant and public events are scheduled to resume in the coming months. Additionally, free103point9 presents projects in collaboration with partnering organizations throughout New York City, State, and nationally and internationally. For example, earlier his year we co-presented the exhibition Airborne (http://www.free103point9.org/airborne.html) with the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. These collaborative programs are an important means to provide opportunities for transmission artists and build audiences in general.

TR: As location becomes less important in a hyper-wired world, the Wave Farm's breadth of size allows for larger projects that were never possible in the free103point9 Gallery. The residency program is already helping foster newworks that need longer to incubate, and can cover more ground, literally. Light is one area of transmission arts, and it is more plentiful upstate then in New York City. All of the airwaves are less cluttered, which presents different sonic opportunities.

NS: Galen, as you mention, free103point9 has been active in the visual/performance art world. The organization has presented several exhibitions since 1997 and your project for the upcoming PERFORMA05 biennial will be a four-day series of transmission prformances. What is it about the audience's physical confrontation with transmission art that an exhibition or live performance setting offers that's appealing to you?

GJH: I am interested in projects that have living, evolving qualities. Transmission works, whether in a performance or exhibition context, incorporate and create live content. While these works may or may not ask the public to interact physically, they impact our experience as a viewer by inhabiting the space around us like a kind of invisble earthwork. free103point9 projects such as "Tune(In))) (http://www.free103point9.org/tunein.php)," "Radio 4x4 (http://www.free103point9.org/radio4x4.php)," "Microradio Soundwalk (http://www.free103point9.org/microradiosoundwalk.php)," and the upcoming "On The Air" (http://www.free103point9.org/event.php?eventID 6) for WHITE NOISE at PERFORMA05 at White Box, in early November, are performance events in which individual artists participate. These projects, which include multiple transmissions ad a constantly changing group of performers, encourage participation from the audience. We consider these events a means to conceptually map the airwaves and educate participants about transmission art?the transmission and reception of content, _expression, and gesture?via their experiences as artists and audiences.

NS: Transmission art, by its very nature, depends on engagement with and adaptation to new technologies. What are some future technological developments that could substantially impact (positvely or negatively) free103point9's mission of cultivating the genre of Transmission Arts and supporting its practitioners?

TR: The advent of digital radio will soon impact a lot of what we do. I just saw that the first hybrid radios, which receive both analog and digital signals, are being sold in the UK, I think. Eventually the analog radio and television bands will be given up for dead, yet there will remain millions of receivers. While the money and high-priced content switch to digital and/or satellte signals, perhaps experimental creative radio and television might thrive for a time in the future in that dead zone. At the same time, radio is becoming intertwined with every aspect of our lives. Radio ID tags are now attached to every product at Wal-Mart; most iPods now are attached to micro-FM transmitters; thousands of people run their own internet radio stations; and cell phones, text messages, and other wireless communication continue to multiply. But the number of radio waves battering our brain daily could turn out to be bad for humans in all sorts of ways. And we might not even be able to aim those waves at each other, if governments continue to limit control over this most public of resources.

GJH: As Tom mentioned, the radio spectrum is now being integrated into almost every aspect of our daily lives, and there are pros and cons to this saturation. In the pro category, I would suggest that with so many wireless products being produced commercially, there exists a wide spectrum of relativelyaffordable equipment for artists to repurpose for creative uses. Also, as these technologies are becoming more and more familiar to our audiences, the "techcentric" aspect of Transmission Arts is demystified, allowing for these projects to be considered in a greater contemporary art context. It is important to clarify that free103point9 defines Transmission Art as a conceptual practice that utilizes the airwaves in as many diverse approaches as possible. Our recent publication "Wave Guide" (www.free10point9.org/waveguide.php) includes a section identifying a selection of key transmission works from the early twentieth century to the present. These historical projects were experiments with early radio, television, and telecommunication technologies, and many contemporary transmission works employ these same fundamental tools today.

NS: One of free103point9's obvious strengths is its ability to act both as practitioner and educator, given its history of action in the field of transmission art. How muchis transmission art education a goal of the new site?

GJH: I subscribe to a broad definition of education and would say that this is a goal in everything we do: performances, exhibitions, online radio, workshops, dispatch releases, residencies, and research facilities.

TR: Our goal is to get folks to understand what Transmission Arts are and how radio can be used creatively. It is exactly like creating a wave and watching the ripple churn out endlessly into space. The more we speak of the idea that radi is a polluted public area that needs to reclaimed and replanted with fresh ideas, the more these ideas circulate and take hold. Several universities are now working transmissions into their curriculum, and more groups are attempting creative radio projects all the time. We hope the Wave Farm can help this movement grow.

Nick Stillman
Editor, NYFA Current
212.366.6900 x248
www.nyfa.org/current