In July 2024, we visited Soft Touch Arts in Leicester (UK) to deliver an Open Wave-Receiver (OWR) workshop. Radio signal is strong in Leicester - the moment we plugged in, we had an incredibly loud signal! Some things we noticed...
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Shortwave Collective were invited to present our work in making DIY radio recievers at 'Strange Tramissions', a salon organised by The Wire magazine and the avant-radio label World Service, held at our favourite Cafe Oto in Dalston. We spoke about the Open Wave-Receiver, managed to find signal in a live demo, and then took part in a panel discussion, alongside live performanes and music by our friends, The evening was broadcast live on Resonance Extra!
We were invited to lead an Open Wave-Receiver workshop at R-Urban in Poplar, east London as part of a summer solstice event called Earworms, a day of music, performance, lisening and radio in the community garden space. Luckily we had sunny weather, and we managed to pick up both Grerman and French radio at greyline. We loved plunging into the sauna as well! 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 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.
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! Our work 'How to make an Open Wave-Reciever' was aired at 10pm CET on Sunday 30th October 2022 for the @radioart106 show produced by soundinista Meira Asher on @rebootfm. Listen > 88,4 MHz in Berlin & 90,7 MHz in Potsdam. Live Stream > https://radio.net/s/rebootfm Resonance FM are broadcasting our series 'Constellations of Listening' on Saturdays at 8pm. 22 episodes record our searches for radio reception via homemade radios, EMF, VLF, VHF scanners and other radio devices over many months and across time zones, from listening sites connecting environments, technologies and voices. Listen out on Saturdays on 104.4 FM in central London, or online here: https://www.resonancefm.com/programmes/635289ca50000bdb18000001 "I wanted to talk to the Shortwave Collective because they are presenting a radically different vision of what radio is and can be. Radio’s history can be thought of as an extended expression of military, political, commercial, and cultural dominance. But the Collective embraces play, experimentation, failure, community, and open listening in their feminist radio practice. So, let’s talk to the Shortwave Collective and see if we can rethink radio–what it’s for and what it can do." - Mack Hagood In October 2022, we were on the Phantom Power podcast, for an episode called '(Re)Making Radio with Shortwave Collective'! Host Mack Hagood brought us on deck to talk about our history as a collective, and then featured the Open-Wave Reciever audio piece. You can listen on the Phantom Power site, or right here on our site (scroll to the bottom).
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