After a week of broadcasting my new work Radiotelegraph as a beacon here in Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland (see “action shot” of broadcast taking place above) and in Chicago Illinois on the Radius platform, I was super pleased to be interviewed by radio wizard Gregory Whitehead over at Desperado Philosophy/ netartery. Click on over for more photos, ruminations, and explanations as to what the performative telegraphy is all about!
Night Fall
A live radio art performance by Anna Friz (CA) with special guest Konrad Korabiewski (PL/DK/IS). Anna has been transmitting the radio art beacon Radiotelegraph from 7.-11. October at sundown, simulcast on low-watt FM radio to Seyðisfjörður, east Iceland, and to the experimental radio platform Radius in Chicago. The beacon signals the descent of the sun into the northern night, using spoken morse code, electronics, and shortwave signals. Night Fall expands from the sonic palate of the beacon in an improvised live show for unlicensed transmission, and invites the audience to contemplate the acoustic and electro-magnetic landscape of Seyðisfjörður at dusk.
Tune in to 107.1FM from 17:41 for approximately one hour (or until dark) local time.
Broadcasting from the residency space on the top floor of Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, so listeners are also welcome to drop in to the open radio studio.
For the month of October, I have a new piece up created especially for Radius. I’m halfway through my two month residency at the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art in the small town of Seyðisfjörður on the east coast of Iceland, and the piece involves radiotelegraphy in spoken morse code. Seyðisfjörður is located in a deep fjord off the Atlantic Ocean just shy of the Arctic Circle, and was the site of the first telegraph cable connection between Iceland and Europe in 1906. 1906 was also the year of the first audio transmission of the human voice by wireless means undertaken by Reginald Fessenden on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean at Brant Rock, Massachusetts.
Radiotelegraph is a beacon simulcast by a private low-watt transmitter in Seyðisfjörður (on 107.1 FM) and by Radius Chicago (88.9 FM) at sundown Seyðisfjörður time, for a period of five days in October. The beacon signals the descent of the sun into the northern night. Voice, electronics, and radio signals, all recorded and mixed at Hóll, Seyðisfjörður.
Seyðisfjörður broadcasts (GMT 0):
October 7: 17:59; October 8: 17:56; October 9: 17:52; October 10: 17:48; October 11: 17:45
Chicago broadcasts (GMT -5):
October 7: 12:59; October 8: 12:56; October 9: 12:52; October 10: 12:48; October 11: 12:45
Radius is an experimental radio broadcast platform based in Chicago Illinois.
Anna Friz + Eric Leonardson @ MEGAPOLIS Audio Festival from MEGAPOLIS Festival on Vimeo.
Eric Leonardson and I played a concert at Union Docs, Brooklyn, in April 2013, in advance of the Megapolis Festival in NYC. The festival folk have just cut together some footage with our talkback session after the concert, check it out! Eric played the Springboard, his self-constructed instrument, and I played various electronics and free reed instruments. The sound system included a two-channel radio array of about 100 radios suspended around the space.
Two NRRF: B Radio episodes from earlier this summer, Voyage to the Forbidden Planet and Landfall on the Forbidden Planet are being rebroadcast as part of the LAK Festival for Nordic Sound Art in Copenhagen, DK September 26-29, 2013. Curated and produced by Jan Høgh Stricker and Kasper Vang as part of their 24-hour radio program Avantgarde FM II.
LAK Festival of Nordic Sound Art presents new Nordic, experimental sound art in raw and urbane settings. In 2013, LAK focuses on how sound art is used as a laboratory to explore new forms of sound and new ways to listen to the world.
NRRF: B Radio is a collaborative effort to make unlicensed neighborhood radio art. NRRF mashes b-list genres with radio art to structure the improvisational nature of the shows. It’s live radio, streamed, with special guests and live audience. The core group consists of Jonny Farrow, Anna Friz, Steve Germana, Jeff Kolar, and Peter Speer with Sarah Knudtson (documentation).
Forgot to post a link to this excellent review by Meredith Kooi over at Bad at Sports, a blog about contemporary art. In May 2013, myself and Coppice did a one-night installation and show over at the TriTriangle space in Wicker Park, Chicago. The aim was to hear what kind of environment would emerge when two sound installations overlap one another, and we also performed within the active sound of the two installations, again overlapping one another. Both Coppice and myself are fond of free reeds, so there were two accordions in the house, along with various other twittering whispering breathing speakers and radios. A lovely evening, and very satisfying from the creative point of view. Read all about it in Meredith’s article Suspended Radiophonic Breath Terrains: Anna Friz and Coppice at TriTriangle.
I’m shacked up in East Iceland, for a two-month residency at the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art. It’s just about the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, in a small town called Seydisfjördur tucked in to the fjord and surrounded by mountains, and filled with friendly folk. The shift was a bit of a shock, to fly from my southwest neighbourhood of Pilsen in Chicago (rambunctious urban living in a full summer heatwave) to this northern sparsely populated place whose green defies the name ‘Iceland’. It’s already dipping below freezing at night, but there are blueberries, bilberries, and crowberries on the hill for the picking. Enjoying some Russian and Romanian shortwave radio too.
While here I’ll be working on two main projects: first an upcoming episode for Radius in Chicago entitled Radio Telegraph which will be simulcast in Chicago and here in Seydisfjördur across some days in October. Exact dates, times, and frequencies TBA. The second task is to work on the final version of The Joy Channel, a project conceived and created together with Emmanuel Madan. We will be doing the final mix in Berlin in November 2013.
Seems my work here is entering a blue phase….
It’s all absurdly scenic around here.
Yup, it’s time to sally forth for our fifth and final episode of NRRF B Radio this summer, kindly hosted by the Experimental Sound Studio here in Chicago, with streaming support and rebroadcast from our favourite station WGXC and Wave Farm (free103point9) Transmission Arts in Green and Columbia counties, New York state.
This week, NRRF goes underground and returns with BROOD II: Emergence. Year 17 has arrived, and genus Magicicada are crawling out of the ground and playing the largest noise show of all time. But there may be more than one kind of insect emerging from its pupa…. All things insectoid, especially those that come in clouds and swarms.
TUNE IN! WEDNESDAY JULY 31, 18h-21h CDST (GMT -6).
If you find yourself on Chicago’s north side, tune in to 87.9FM, or better yet, drop in and say hi at ESS, 5925 N Ravenswood, where the live radio is happening.
or listen online at http://free103point9.org.
free103point9/ WGXC in Greene/Columbia counties NY will rebroadcast the show following the live show at 11CDT.
B Radio: a series of radio shows mashing b-list genres with radio art. Each B Radio episode features a theme to structure the improvisational nature of the shows, though tangents are frequent and encouraged. It’s live radio, streamed, with special guests and live audience. The core group of performers play live instruments and electronics, sample wildly, speculate broadly, and have been known to sing.
NRRF is a collaborative effort to make unlicensed neighborhood radio art. For this Chicago iteration, the core group of noisemakers consists of Jonny Farrow, Anna Friz, Steve Germana, Jeff Kolar, Peter Speer, with Sarah Knudtson (documentation and props wrangling). Earlier projects include street radio in Montreal (2001), the NRRF Radio Roadshow (2004), and Radio Free Parkdale in Toronto (2005-2007).
If you are in Chicago, come on down, up, or over to Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) where you will encounter at least five very soggy pirates having a picnic in the Bermuda Triangle. There will be costumes, custom cocktails, and very large knives! Sea shanties! Sentient squid! The innocent Devil’s Triangle! It’s B Radio, episode 4: Pirate Picnic in the Bermuda Triangle!
Here’s how to tune in:
1. If you are within a several block radius of ESS, tune in to 87.9FM starting at 6pm CDT ending at 9pm.
2. Come to think of it, if you are within a several block radius of ESS, just come over and “watch” radio being made.
3. Use the innernets to listen — here’s a link with instructions. Seems slightly complicated, but if you can cut and paste, you can get to radio space. http://transmissionarts.org/event/b8hyq4
More about NRRF B Radio:
B Radio: a series of radio shows mashing b-list genres with radio art. Each B Radio episode features a theme to structure the improvisational nature of the shows, though tangents are frequent and encouraged. It’s live radio, streamed, with special guests and live audience. The core group of performers play live instruments and electronics, sample wildly, speculate broadly, and have been known to sing. NRRF is a collaborative effort to make unlicensed neighborhood radio art. For this Chicago iteration, the core group of noisemakers consists of Jonny Farrow, Anna Friz, Steve Germana, Jeff Kolar, Peter Speer, with Sarah Knudtson (documentation and props wrangling). Earlier projects include street radio in Montreal (2001), the NRRF Radio Roadshow (2004), and Radio Free Parkdale in Toronto (2005-2007).
More about Episode 4: “Pirate Picnic in the Bermuda Triangle”:
Five jolly NRRF pirates set out to sea in their sloop to ride the radio waves. They quickly encounter a massive storm which diverts them into the Bermuda Triangle, where the ship is scuttled and underwater adventures abound, complete with creatures massive and minute, friendly and menacing. Finally they wash up on a remote island, and have to fend for themselves. This radio event might even include a cooking demonstration. Vegan option available.
“It’s just the innocent devil’s triangle / It dares you to come down, that’s it’s angle / That’s the way of Bermuda.” -Roky Erickson
“If you can’t cook your friends, then who can you cook?” – Captain Cooke
I have a site-specific installation up this weekend in Berlin as part of the conference Digitale Sinneskulturen des Radios/Multisensual Radio Culture.
21./22. JUNI 2013
STUDIO P4 | Nalepastraße 18-50 | 12459 Berlin
Studio Time is a new piece which adapts compositional elements from For the time being (2010) and What the cuckoo knows (2013), two recent pieces of mine exploring aspects of radio and timekeeping. This family of works considers the fallibility and musicality of broadcast clocks. Studio Time uses incidences of official time signals (such as UTC broadcast on shortwave radio, the National Research Council time signal heard on Canadian public radio, and clock tower bells heard at noon on Finnish and Dutch radio stations), as well as sounds from domestic analogue striking clocks, particularly cuckoo clocks. The installation was created for the conference on the site of the former studios of the DDR Funkhaus, now a recording studio and venue. The studio is preserved in its original design, and Studio Time occupies four voice-over isolation booths adjacent to a main studio. Each booth has a different part of the piece: two single channel pieces are heard over a mono speaker in each of two booths, a set of headphones plays a stereo piece in the third booth, and a mono radio transmits a composition in the fourth booth.
Thanks to Emmanuel Madan for setting things up for me in absentia. He’s exhibiting an installation exploring mechanical induction and bodily capacitance at the conference as well, entitled Lueurs.
Digitale Sinneskulturen des Radios is presented by Masterstudiengang Online Radio, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg mit Breitband, Deutschlandradio Kultur und Experimentelles Radio, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.