anna friz

A train and a ferry ride away from Berlin, and I find myself in Copenhagen, Danmark this week for a series of events, thanks to the enthusiastic curatorial efforts of Jan Høgh Stricker and Anne Clement and KNTN.

Tonight (7. February, 2014) I’m performing together with Konrad Korabiewski (that’s us in action above) at the noise bunker known as Mayhem, Ragnhildgade 1 Kbh NV. Doors at 20:00, opening acts Hannibal Andersen and David Maranha, though we will be performing second. We’ll be using a multi-channel speaker and radio set up, with various low-fi electronics, cottage-built instruments, and mutually intertwined feedback systems. As analogue as possible.

Sunday 9. February 2014, 12:00-16:00, Konrad and I will give a workshop, whose title is inspired by the ever-erudite Gregory Whitehead:  An Intricate Game of Position: Critical artistic and phenomenological approaches to sound and radio.  This workshop discusses key paradigms such spatiality and resonance, active listening, transception, and transmission ecology, and includes a listening session and demonstration of basic transmission principles using micro-radio. Participants will also undertake guided activities and improvisational exercises such as soundwalking, and work together to create ‘instant’ performative radio pieces.  Taking place at the YNKB and Astrid Noack’s Atelier here in ydre Nørrebro, Copenhagen.

Earlier in the week, I curated this month’s episode of Københavns Radiobiograf at the Gloria Bio on Tuesday 4. February (where an audience gathers to listen to radio pieces in a darkened cinema). In addition to some old and new pieces of my own (Respire, Pirate Jenny, and Radiotelegraph) I had the pleasure of sharing some of my favourite pieces by others, like Miranda July‘s WSNO, About Time by Yves Daoust, and an excerpt from a.j. cornell‘s Private Telephone 1981. Check them out yourself, and wear some headphones while you listen!

Also gave a lecture on Thursday 6. February at the Hovedbibliothek or main library here in Copenhagen, on the topic of “The Unstable Art of Radio“, which was a brief introduction to creative uses and manipulations of radio and electro-magnetic waves, particularly looking at working with transmitters, manipulating receivers, and some aeriology. Really nice audience, and a great opportunity for me to dig up old crystal set schematics and evidence of DIY tinkering… even as proposed by Quaker Oats:

No Comments | In: news, performances, transmission | tags: anna friz, Astrid Noack's atelier, konrad korabiewski, Københavns Hovedbibliothek, Københavns Radiobiograf, making noise where ever we go, Mayhem, radio art, transmission art, YNKB. | #

Tonight is the opening of my new installation and performance entitled White Night, created within the frame of my City at Night theme during a 2-month residency with KC Tobačna 001 and radioCONA here in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

* Opening at 19:00 at KC Tobačna 001 gallery, Tobačna ulica 1, Ljubljana
* RadioCONA broadcast on 88.8FM begins at 19:16
* Performance in the gallery at 20:00-ish

Later on, Brane Zorman and I do a live set for 2 FM frequencies, using the radioCONA temporary frequency (88.8FM) and the airwaves of Radio Študent (89.3FM) here in Ljubljana. For those of you listening locally, make sure to have 2 radios on at home, one for each station, to hear the full effect!

Here’s a little description of White Night
Radiophonic installation and performance

Since the advent of artificial illumination, the nocturnal urban space is increasingly described by its lighting. The shape and contour of the built environment is outlined by streetlighting, highlighted by mobile car and transport lights, and by lights left blazing in the windows of office towers and store fronts, or recreating daylight over subdivisions, parking lots and sports fields. The stars recede and the sky grows blank from the strength of light pollution, a process accentuated by the typical fog in Ljubljana in winter: no sun, no stars, only diffuse light in a white sky drawn close to the ground.

The ubiquitous infrastructure of the electrical grid powers most nocturnal activity, and its surplus is ticks, static, and hums transmitted by many nodes: buildings, devices, lights, and lines; by damp electrical wires, power stations, connection boxes, irate refrigerators, and ungrounded home entertainment systems alike. Electrical and spectral communication grids overlap and exceed the official city limits, and in these electro-magnetic fields invisible creatures sing on a pale night made indistinct by fog.

Created while in residence at Tobačna 001 and with radioCONA; travel funding gratefully received from the Canada Council for the Arts, Media Art division.
Thank you to Irena Pivka and Vlado G. Repnik.

No Comments | In: installation, news, performances, transmission | tags: anna friz, City at Night, radio art, radio installation, radioCONA, Tobacna 001, transmission art, White Night. | #

I have a new radio art/work premiering this weekend: Collecting Clocks and Losing Time, made in 5.1 and stereo (2012-2013),  44:00. It premieres on Sunday, 8. December, 2013, at 23:03 CET or GMT +1, on ORF Kunstradio, Vienna, Austria. If you’re in Austria, tune in live to Ö1 on the radio to hear it in 5.1 or stereo, or stream from their website. You can also listen to the archived (but lower-quality) mp3 stream on Kunstradio any time after.

Developed as part of a suite of iterations about radio and timekeeping (includes the broadcast and performance work For the time being (2010), the compositions Measure the time taken (2012), and the installations 5 Times (less a hundred) (2012), and Studio Time (2013).

The first version of Collecting Clocks and Losing Time premiered at the Tsonami Festival de Arte Sonoro in Valparaiso, Chile, on November 26, 2012, and was then performed in 8 channels at the Deep Wireless Festival of Radio and Transmission Art in Toronto, May 2013. The present 5.1 version of the piece, which premieres on ORF Kunstradio, is the final version of this cycle.

Here’s the description, which, though cryptic, is really what it’s all about:

An aural expedition across zones of hard and soft time, to where cuckoos nest and errant robotniks bungle the machinery of atomic time.

Once upon a time there was a house in the countryside which housed a hundred clocks. Once upon a time the clocks in every home ran on their own time, and all the trains and hotels and shops counted their own time. One day time was made universal, divided into zones, and propagated around the globe. One day microwaves were fired at a cesium-12 isotope, and the rate of electron loss dictated the most standard time of all. Still there were digital devices that did not understand which time zone they lived in. Still the clocks slowed, dragging the seconds and minutes and hours behind them. Still everyone was late.

My father collected cuckoo clocks, which I inherited when he died. He left 5 clocks behind. Once upon a time there were 26. I have come to learn that there are much larger clock collections than this. I have also learned that coordinated universal time is a legend told among the cuckoos in the clock forest on a rainy night.

Recorded in Vancouver and Chicago.
Mixed in 5.1 at Ö1 studios, Vienna, Austria.  Martin Leitner, teknik.

No Comments | In: news, transmission | tags: anna friz, atomic time, Collecting Clocks and Losing Time, cuckoo clock art, ORF Kunstradio, radio and timekeeping, radio art, UTC. | #

One night train from Berlin to Slovenia later… I’ve arrived in Ljubljana, and moved into to the artist residence at Tobačna 001, a cosy little apartment upstairs in the cultural centre run by the City Museum of Ljubljana on the sprawling grounds of an old tobacco factory. I’ll be here for two months, and working together with the artist-run group CONA (CONA Institute for Contemporary Arts Processing) to make “temporary radio for contemporary art”. A central project for CONA in 2013-2014 is REuse MESTO: REuse RADIO, and my contribution is to explore the potential in nighttime transmissions across urban space, under the title of City at Night:

With the advent of urban illumination and electricity, the city at night is a place of potential: filled with pleasure and danger, subversion, reclamation, and escape. The city at night is described by its transformation from the quotidian arena of day into sites of shadow and ambiguity, where some acts are hidden, while others take place under the scrutiny of precisely circumscribed light. The nocturnal world of radio is a similarly charged space of potential and possibility. Electro-magnetic activity is also the invisible print of the city, with overlapping fields of activity passing through the built environment. Signals converge and the city is imagined and made. 

Many people remember tuning in to radio to hear a free-form overnight program, where the DJ had full choice on what to play, and was released from the strictures of programmed songs and advertisements after hours. Making radio for those not represented by the daily routine, but for those up late, working late, unusually awake–the invisible interaction between terrestrial, live broadcast and the city mostly asleep. Now most radio stations rely on automation over night, rebroadcasting music and talk radio imbued with the mood of day time, not the changeable atmospheres of night. But like the brick and concrete city which is transformed by different practices between day and night, nighttime radio is another kind of urban space to be reclaimed, rethought. What ambiguous relationships, what liminal territories, what reverie might be encountered and engaged after dark?

City at Night seeks to rethink and reframe urban spaces through its nocturnal signals, through incursions across the city after dark, from social spaces to empty places, resulting in live night radio performance, compositions, interventions and an ongoing installation. The gallery space associated with the Tobačna 001 residency will be turned into an open studio with an evolving radio installation, a hub which will function as a radio ‘station’ from which to broadcast and stream overnight from January 16-26 when a licensed city-wide FM frequency is available for use as radioCONA, and a space in which to hold performance or performance/lectures related to the topic of reusing and repurposing nighttime radio and the city.

All broadcasting will take place after dark and overnight, and I am particularly looking forward to programming some long-form and generative works for broadcast which can reflect the liminality of listening, night, and urban activity.

Most immediately, I will be holding a public lecture here next week, December 9, 2013, on the topic of REuse RADIO— an overview of radio and transmission art, my own artistic practices in the electro-magnetic spectrum, and some listening to works. December 10-11, 2013 I convene a working group of local artists emerging and established, so that we can embark on the process of creating transmission works to air or perform or present in January during the broadcast week of radioCONA.

My travel to Ljubljana is made possible by the Canada Council for the Arts, Media Arts division.

No Comments | In: news, research, transmission | tags: anna friz, CONA, radio art, radio art in Ljubljana, radioCONA, REuse MESTO: REuse RADIO, shameless self-promotion, Tobacna 001, transmission art. | #

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.

No Comments | In: news, transmission | tags: anna friz, radio art, Radiotelegraph, Radius, skaftfell center for visual arts east iceland, transmission art. | #

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.

No Comments | In: installation, news | tags: anna friz, emmanuel madan, radio art, radio sinne, studio time, transmission art. | #

NRRF presents: B Radio

Episode 3: Landfall on the Forbidden Planet

After a harrowing encounter with the Nebulaic Alliance, at which point they may or may not have been cloned, our intrepid NRRF cosmonauts leave the solar system to land upon a mysterious distant planet, enshrouded in fog and murk. Adventures on the Forbidden Planet and the Mandatory Planet ensue, with the possible cloning of the entire human species at stake!

Wednesday June 19, 2013  18h-21h.

LIVE radio at the studios of the Experimental Sound Studio, 5925 N Ravenswood, Chicago

Online (link TBA), and on air in the neighbourhood.

Streaming generously provided by free103point9 Transmission Arts, and the show will be rebroadcast on WGXC 90.7FM NY June 20, midnight-3am.

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, broadcast and 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 neighbourhood 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 (graphics, 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).

NRRF flag by Jonny Farrow.

No Comments | In: news, performances, transmission | tags: anna friz, B Radio, ESS, experimental sound studio, Forbidden Planet, jeff kolar, jonny farrow, NRRF, peter speer, Pirate radio art, radio art, stephen germana. | #

Usually when more than one sound installation moves into a gallery space, it’s an instant competition where the loudest wins the day. This Saturday, myself and Coppice (Joseph Kramer and Noé Cuéllar) seek to prove otherwise. We are installing two different sound-based installations that intentionally overlap, interested to see what they produce in conversation with one another. We’ll be performing within/with them as well, each taking a turn to add to the sonic environment.

I was excited from the first time I heard of Chicago-based Coppice, as they are also focused on free reeds and electronics, unstable systems, and spatialized, often quiet sounds.  Here’s what we’re up to:

Anna Friz/ Coppice   Saturday May 25, 2013     TriTriangle   Third Floor, 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave  Chicago    Installation open 6-11pm.  Performance around 9pm.

Anna Friz: Nocturne

An intimate atmosphere of transmission inside a multi-channel array of radio receivers and micro-watt transmitters, suspended and dispersed throughout the space. The radios express nighttime respirations, radio-synthesis, and uneasy dreams. The larger array is joined by three table-top custom radio/tape players built by Hyde Park inventor George Kagan.

Nocturne will overlap in installation and performance with A Vinculum Variation by Coppice, engaging in conversation with the elements of the shared sonic landscape and the live instruments of all three performers. Anna plays free reeds, electronics, and cassettes.

Coppice: A Vinculum Variation

This presentation expands the performed-installation practice of the duo to invite conversation with adjacent sonic work.  The multichannel installation and performance accommodates motifs and materials from Vinculum, an ongoing project since 2010.  Technically, the work relies on a custom-built inductive mixing table, formerly utilized in Copse (2010).  The table redistributes the sounds of the Vinculum archive as they are played back through small speakers resting at different locations on its surface.  The installation will be elaborated in performance by the reorientation of the speakers on the table and live material related to Vinculum.

No Comments | In: installation, news, performances | tags: anna friz, Coppice, radio art, sound installation, TriTriangle. | #

Currently working in Vienna at Kunstradio, at the ORF Funkhaus, aka at the studios of the Austrian national public radio’s cultural channel. I’ve been composing a 5.1 piece for broadcast on Kunstradio later this spring, made with the best-of radio+timekeeping material that I’ve generated through various longer form radio shows (shout out to Mobile Radio BSP, Second Site, and last year’s live show for Kunstradio for giving me some opportunities to produce the raw materials!) The new piece still lacks a title, but it’s 44 minutes of cuckoo clocks, time transformed by a drone dune, and robotniks misbehaving in the time factory. More info soon.

Upcoming shows:

quota; unquota 1, Salon Bruit, Berlin: Friday Feb 15, 20h, Kino @ K77, Kastanienallee 77 10435 Berlin (also on the bill: Audrey Chen and JD Zazie)

Megapolis NYC: Saturaday April 13, 20h. Union Docs, Brooklyn NYC (performing with Eric Leonardson)

Heart as Arena, Québec tour: remounting the dance performance by choreographer Dana Gingras/Animals of Distinction, with original radiophonic sound design and composition April 23, Centennial Theatre, Sherbrooke; April 25, 26, 27, La Rotonde, centre chorégraphique contemporain de Québec, Québec).

Deep Wireless, Toronto: SOCAN composer in residence at the Deep Wireless Festival– Translocal performance with NRRF and guests, May 1; solo performance at the NAISA space May 4; then giving a keynote talk at the TransX Transmission Art Symposium and performance with Kristen Roos on May 19.

Sounds Like Audio Art Festival 3, Saskatoon:  July 25-27, Paved Arts, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

More dates in the hopper and awaiting cofirmation or funding: a performed installation in Chicago in May at Tri-Triangle/Your Unpleasant Friend, some Australian shows in June with Eric Leonardson and Jay Needham, and ongoing pirate mayhem with the NRRF collective (look for B-Radio info to come).

No Comments | In: news, performances, research | tags: anna friz, ORF Kunstradio, radio art, sound performance. | #

Radios set up for my performance at the opening at the Tsonami Festival de Arte Sonoro, Valparaiso Chile, November 27, 2012.  The venue was an old prison transformed into a cultural centre; here the steep hills of Valpo are visible in the background. I had simply the most wonderful time at this festival of any event in recent memory–the organization really emphasized the social side of holding a festival in addition to top-notch works being presented. And I love love love Valparaiso! You can’t tell from these photos, but it was glorious summer weather, and that Pacific breeze blowing up the hills every day was nothing short of intoxicating.

This and all following photos credited to Nelson Campos.

No Comments | In: news, performances | tags: anna friz, radio art, shameless self-promotion, transmission art, Tsonami Festival de Arte Sonoro. | #