Tate Modern have invited Shortwave Collective to host an 'art chat' at their April edition of Tate Lates. The theme of the event is 'sonic disruption', to coincide with the launch of Aura Satz's 'Preemptive Listening' film earlier in the week.
Programme: Art Chats Date: 26th April 2024 Location: Blavatnik Building, Level 5, Tate Modern, or stream online 19.00–19.30 Mushrooms, Mycelium and Music Marleen Boschen, Tate’s Adjunct Curator of Art and Ecology, will delve into the fantastical sounds of fungi, bio-sonification and mycelium networks with artist Laura Selby. 20.00–20.30 Feminism and DIY Tech Join members of Shortwave Collective as they discuss feminist approaches to sound and radio, and de-mystifying technology. 21.00–21.30 Sonic Experiences Curator Kobi Prempeh explores our relationship with sonic experiences in conversation with Margarita Louca, lecturer and host of NTS Radio’s Don’t Trip, and Ella Finer, researcher of gender and sonic cultures and author of forthcoming book of essays Acoustic Commons and the Wild Life of Sound. The event is free but ticketed: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/tate-modern-lates
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Cooinciding with their exhibition, Tate Britain hosted a two-day conference on performance-based arts, sound and moving image practices that were an integral part of feminist creative and campaigning activities of the 1970s and 1980s.
Shortwave Collective presented as part of the Beyond Her Noise: Feminisms and the Sonic panel, convened by Creative Research into Sound Arts (CRiSAP). Our contribution took shape as a performance-talk where the four of us able to be there in person took it in turns to read a new paper, collectively authored for the event, with amplified interjections from Shortwave members contributing remotely. We also riso-printed 100 Open Wave-Reciever how-to zines and gave these away at the welcome desk - these were much appreciated! In March, we were invited by Nikki Sheth from Open School East in Margate to run an 'ultra DIY' workshop in building Open Wave-Receivers. We had a blast playing with alternative materials and testing our sets both on the beach and at a nearby park. That day, the airwaves of Margate were filled with a drone sound, and we're puzzling over what it might have been. Mysterious!
We had a glorious time in Madrid building DIY radios and collecting signals in the air with Real No Real and ACME Estudios! Shortwave was invited to lead an Open Wave-Receiver construction workshop in Vallecas, where we had over 20 participants building radios. After the workshop, we all went to the nearby Parque Amós Acero to test our sets at sunset and caught a wide range of signals from Spain and beyond. And we managed to turn the workshop building itself into an enormous receiver!
The Orpheus Institute invited us to be part of their Sound Arguments laboratory-atelier series in Belgium this month. We enjoyed spending two days with this group or artists, musicians and researchers, doing some shortwave practice together in Ghent. We began with a radio building session, where all 25 attendees built their own Open Wave-Receiver radios (OWR) and followed this with listening and discussion sessions. In the listening session every radio was first tested, before groups went out into the city to explore the urban landscape and the listening possibilities there. Listening experiments included using the river as a ground, a stick and a hair band as an antenna stretching device, connecting with fences and lampposts, and throwing the antenna high into the air. Many things were heard including talk radio, music, mains electricity, data packets, and the fuzzes and buzzes of electromagnetic radio waves. Regrouping at the Orpheus institute, each group discussed their listening explorations and the urban conditions that they encountered. As a group we then listened to a short excerpt of an OWR recording taken by the collective at 'grey line' on the summer solstice in Scotland, the recording includes sferics and the gentle appearance of radio stations that seemingly float in on the waves of an electromagnetic tide. Our final time together was spent discussing the idea of hearing our connection to our environments, just as we do with our OWR's and the 'constellations of listening' that inform their use. We asked the groups to discuss how, in their own artistic practices, they can also hear their connection to their surroundings? Images © Tessa De Moor - Orpheus Instituut
Sound Arguments is an innovative laboratory-atelier for creative artists and researchers dealing with sound. Presented by the Orpheus Institute, Ghent (BE), and the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, University of Leiden (NL), Sound Arguments transcends the boundaries of art school or conservatory, art space or university to propose a new kind of creating-researching-learning community. It reaches into the broad and complex space of current art-sound practices. At Sound Arguments, participants will share, invent, learn and discuss. Info: https://orpheusinstituut.be/en/news-and-events/sound-arguments-2024 In February, we hosted a workshop at Wharf Chambers, a creative space in central Leeds. 16 participants made Open Wave-Receivers, and as coils were wrapped we talked about radio in an expanded sense and heard about some of the creative projects that participants had brewing. We got some strong signal from the radios immediately - overlapping UK stations broadcasting news and football updates, and then, to much excitement a French station wafted in. Unfortunately, extended listening got rained off - but we hope to hear about more listening experiments in Leeds in the coming weeks.
The Digital Writing and Research Lab at the University of Texas in Austin organised a workshop building radios, based on our Open Wave-Receiver resources. We were very excited to see the documentation they shared with us from the event - and to hear that everyone was able to listen with an Open Wave-Receiver by the end of the day. The workshops were developed and led by Trent Wintermeier, who sent us these photos and videos from the workshop. Back in November 2023, we had collective discussions in response to prompts proposed by Agnès Pe, who then beautifully edited together this podcast titled 'Is There Really a Place on Radio for Experimentation?'. Listen here: https://radio.museoreinasofia.es/there-really-place-radio-experimentation
We are in a book! Edited by Sarah Washington, Radio Art Zone explores the central themes, concepts and techniques of artist-made radio. It brings to the page live long-form works from the world’s largest exhibition of radio art, which took place as part of the European Capital of Culture Esch22. Interspersed with micro-essays on radio form, practice and poetics, and illustrated throughout with unique images, the book performs an exquisite transformation from airwaves to paper and provides a treasury of ideas about radio as art.
To celebrate the launch, we took part in an evening even at the London launch, 4th November 2023 at Iklectik Art Lab. Artists involved with the original Radio Art Zone radio art festival in 2022 delivered short performances, broadcast live on Resonance Extra. Two of our members read out a collection of listening experiences, overlaid with sounds collected from our radio-listening experiments. The Western Balkans branch of forumZFD invited us to participate in a series of events taking place in partnership with CRiSAP at the Centre for Narrative Research in Pristina, Kosovo. We delivered a hybrid workshop in September 2023, building Open Wave-Receivers with MA students, supporting their ongoing exploration of sound, memory and public space. We travelled to West Yorkshire in August 2023 to speak at the Wuthering Bytes festival of technology in Hebden Bridge. Info here: https://wutheringbytes.com/whatson/festival-day Shortwave Collective recently worked on a new commission for Struer Tracks, a biennial of sound and listening in Struer, Denmark. In the lead up to the festival, we were supported by volunteers from technology company Bang & Olfsen, based in Struer, as remote resident artists. We were able to make use of the company's e-waste during the project and build DIY amplifiers.
Throughout the biennial, we ran a Living Radio Lab, inviting visitors into the process of developing and listening with Open Wave-Receivers – simple radio receiving devices that provide site- and time-specific access to the sounds travelling on the invisible electromagnetic waves surrounding us. The lab was open from 23rd-27th August 2023. Please see our project page for more... On Thursday 25 May, two Shortwavers joined up with Soncities and the Modern Art Oxford museum. We were there for EMPRES Art of Noises VIII, an evening of experimental sound and performance. We exhibited some of the radios built by Oxford University students in the 5 May workshop, hooked up to strange bits of metal sheets and piping from the museum as experimental diodes and antennae, playing sounds from our experiments in urban listening. We also took part in an illuminating Q&A session with Gascia Ouzounian from the Faculty of Music!
Read more on the SONCITIES website here Photos by Helen Messenger Photography. As part of Hackoustic's All Day-er, we ran an Open Wave-Receiver workshop at Ikectik in London on 17th June 2023. Participants scavenged the site and made some new designs, picking up LBC Radio from Archbishop's Park in Waterloo, London.
SONCITIES research project invited us to lead a workshop with University of Oxford students in April and to present radio work at the EMPRES research group's late event at Modern Art Oxford in May. We made 10 new Open Wave-Receiver radios with students and embarked on an urban listening experiment in Oxford's city centre, connecting our radios to fences, posts and bins in order to listen through and with the city. Following our workshop, the students made new compositions with the radios, for exhibition at Modern Art Oxford on May 25th in the Art of Noises late night event. This late event is led by the EMPRES research group and responds to to Carey Young's solo show ‘Appearance’, which explores themes of power dynamics, relationships to space, text, feminism, and institutions of justice. What a great environment to be sharing our feminist radio practice in!
Join us at Modern Art Oxford on May 25th, 6.30-10pm. The info and tickets (free) will be available online here soon. We're delighted to be working with: Sonorous Cities: Towards a Sonic Urbanism (SONCITIES) a research project at University of Oxford formed at the intersection of sound, urbanism, and critical spatial practices; The University of Oxford’s Electronic Music Practice RESearch group (EMPRES) who aim to promote and advance research and public dissemination in Electronic Music Practice; and Modern Art Oxford who are renowned for their bold, progressive and international artistic programme that promotes culturally diverse viewpoints from around the world. Soundcamp is a free sound and ecology festival at Stave Hill Ecological Park, London, over the Dawn Chorus Day weekend. It's our favourite event of the year, as Shortwave Collective was formed during a workshop taking place there in 2020. Three of us led an Open Wave-Receiver building workshop at Soundcamp 10, and a record 42 radios were made and tested!
In April 2023, we delivered our first hybrid workshop constructing DIY radios. Participants gathered in a workshop room in New York during Open Hardware Summit, and made Open Wave-Receivers with us! remotely. We were back at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, on 10th March 2023, delivering a workshop making Open Wave-Receivers with BA & MA Sound Arts students. 32 radios were made, though testing was brief due to freezing weather!
Liverpool-based radio station Melodic Distraction broadcast an extended version of our piece 'Open Wave-Receiver' on 8th March, at 10pm (UK-time). The piece is an audio how-to guide, sharing our experiments with DIY radio. In March 2023, we ran an Open Wave-Receiver workshop with Bradford Sound Women's Network at Fuse Art Space, West Yorkshire (UK). Participants brought scavenged parts, and made some innovative designs include a weaving-kit radio and a whale toy radio. Though freezing, we spent a little time hooking them up around town, catching Radio 'Five Live' in amongst intriguing feedback sounds.
Shortwave Collective hosted a lecture for LCC's Sound Arts 'visiting practitioner' series on 19th January 2023 (UK time). The talk was aimed at BA, MA and PhD Sound Arts students, with external guests joining online.
Alyssa, Georgia and Hannah chat to artist Dave Evans on his radio programme Patio Sounds on Liverpool-based station Melodic Distraction radio, 4pm on 18th January 2023.
On Wednesday 7th December, first hour of 'Constellations of Listening' was broadcast as part of Tsonami Festival (Chile)! Tsonami Festival of Sound Arts is a place of sound and listening research and experimentation, promoting arts in Chile. The programme of works is spread across the city of Valparaiso itself with interventions from six Latin American artists collectives, plus an online radio programme is broadcasting 24/7 sharing the in-situ activity along with a large schedule of radio works. radiotsonami.org For the 20th edition of Pikselfest, an annual event for Electronic Art and Technological Freedom in Bergen Norway, we had the pleasure of hosting two Open Wave-Receiver radio making workshops, and having a micro-residency for the collective (aka a unique opportunity for 6 of us to be together simultaneously and connect digitally with the rest of the collective)
For the workshop we foraged for found materials around Bergen, looking things to include into the radios as coils or diodes. This resulted in a branch and a vacuum cleaner tube both being used as the objects for the coil to be wrapped around, and working really well (the latter as a very open spacious coil!). Our listening spot, up the side of one of the many hills in the city, gave us textured radio static and one or two talk radio stations to listen to in the freezing cold darkness just after sunset. On the side of the open wave-radio testing we had a play with a VLF antenna, held in a loop by a group of people who danced around with it, this tuned us into a vibrant texture of humming and the occasional click of sferics - natural radio emissions from lightning! |
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