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 completed 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 pirate 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 than as 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 context 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 this 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 new works 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 performances. 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 invisible 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 and 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 (positively 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 satellite 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 brains 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
relatively affordable 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.free103point9.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 much is 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 radio 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