Mission and History

Wave Farm is an international transmission arts organization driven by experimentation with the electromagnetic spectrum. We cultivate creative practices in radio and support artists and nonprofit organizations in their cultural endeavors.

Based in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley, Wave Farm is a media arts center, media platform, and arts service organization. Wave Farm offers interdisciplinary outdoor installations, residencies and fellowships, and a research library. We operate FM radio station WGXC and host many online radio channels. Wave Farm provides fiscal sponsorship, consultation, and grants to artists and organizations.

Wave Farm’s Art Park features long-term installations on Wave Farm’s 29-acres in Acra, NY. These projects amplify the environment revealing what is otherwise unheard or unseen. The Wave Farm Residency Program provides artists working within the Transmission Arts genre opportunities to research and create new works. Wave Farm’s Archives document and contextualize this work, including the Wave Farm Radio Art Archive, which is which is informed by an ongoing fellowship program. Wave Farm’s WGXC-FM is a full-power, non-commercial, listener-supported station in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley operating out of dedicated studios in Acra and Catskill, NY; as well as pop-up temporary studio locations throughout the listening area and beyond. With a station modo of "Radio for Open Ears," WGXC transmits 3,300 watts to more than 78,000 potential listeners on 90.7-FM and unlimited international listeners at wavefarm.org/listen. Hands-on access and par­ticipation distinguish WGXC as a public platform for information, experimenta­tion, and engagement. Wave Farm's Grants and Consulting Services activities include NYSCA Regrant Programs, Fiscal Sponsorship, and Consulting Services that take shape as curatorial projects, technical consultation, and nonprofit administration and development support.

Wave Farm began in March 1997, founded by three artists: Greg Anderson, Violet Hopkins, and Tom Roe, as a microcasting collective in Brooklyn, NY called free103point9. The group was an active participant in the U.S. microradio movement, an activist and advocacy effort that helped create this country’s low-power FM radio service, which provides a licensing opportunity for small broadcasters operating transmitters of 100 watts or less.

From 1997 to 2004 free103point9 ran a venue for performance and experimental sound in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The “free103point9 Project Space” was home to a lively roster of artists working in noise, free jazz, electronic composition, and other experimental fringe genres. Many of these artists encountered microradio for the first time through free103point9. As a result, a local and international community of artists started to think conceptually about the transmission spectrum as a creative medium, becoming invested in a “hands-on” relationship with the airwaves. free103point9 launched an online radio station in 2001 engaging new and global audiences, and embarked on a series of radio experiments, projects, and performances internationally.

That airwaves are public space and should therefore be accessible by the public, and that airwaves should be available for creative purposes, experimentation, and risk-taking is the ideology that has driven free103point9’s activities since its inception. In 2002-2003 free103point9 incorporated and secured 501(c)3 non-profit status, evolving from an artist collective to an arts organization whose mission is to define and cultivate Transmission Arts.

In 2005, free103point9 expanded activities to Greene County, launching an artist-residency program, outdoor performance series, and installation park on a 29-acre property called Wave Farm. In 2006, free103point9 broke ground on a dedicated facility called the Wave Farm Study Center.

free103point9 submitted an application to the FCC in October 2007 during a rare filing window for full-power non-commercial educational FM radio stations. A year later, on October 17, 2008, free103point9 received a construction permit to build a new FM station. The FM station was planned to serve both sides of the organization's roots: radio art and activism on the airwaves.

In June 2008, a Council of local advisors was established to guide the development of the station with regards to serving Greene and Columbia counties’ local community. Council members provided critical input in naming the station, identifying its guiding values, and getting 90.7-FM off the ground and on the airwaves.

In Fiscal Year 2009, free103point9 became a regrant partner of the New York State Council on the Arts, Electronic Media and Film Program, administering the distribution of grant funds, ranging from $500 to $10,000, to dozens of New York State individual artists and organizations annually.

In September 2010, WGXC partnered with the national radio advocacy organization Prometheus Radio Project to host a first full-power FM barnraising in Hudson, NY. The conference included three days of workshops, presentations, and performances, during which participants collaborated to build WGXC’s Hudson studio and help prepare the station for its FM signal launch.

On February 26, 2011, WGXC went live on air at 90.7-FM. WGXC celebrated this momentous occasion with a live broadcast event that featured many of the station’s first on-air programmers.

In June 2012, the Wave Farm Study Center opened its doors to the public, reigniting free103point9 programs, such as the Wave Farm Residency Program, the Transmission Arts Archive, and Wave Farm Radio's 24/7 Experimental Sound and Transmission Art channel, currently known as "Standing Wave Radio," that had become somewhat dormant while organizational resources were focused on launching WGXC.

From 2013 to 2015, as part of an organization-wide strategic planning process, free103point9 began using Wave Farm as its organizational name and identity. And in 2016, Wave Farm's WGXC published A Manifesto for Participatory Radio, which articulated the station's key belief system: Hands-on, two-way radio; Creative Use of the Airwaves; and Community.

Wave Farm celebrated its 20th Anniversary year throughout 2017 with a series of special events and live durational broadcasts including, Wave Farm Pirate Radio Reunion Cruise on Classic Harbor Line's Manhattan II yacht, March 7, 2017; Audio Buffet (For Pauline Oliveros), July 22, 2017 at Wave Farm; and Wave Farm 1997-2017: Twenty Performances for Twenty Years, October 21, 2017 at the Fridman Gallery in New York City.

At the end of 2018, Wave Farm adopted a new WGXC station slogan, "Radio for Open Ears," in conjunction with changes to the 90.7-FM program schedule, which now fully integrates radio art, sound art, and experimental music with community public affairs content. Local interview programs are brought to the foreground during expanded morning and afternoon drive time programs, and evening programming features live performance from near and far, that are made possible by the Wave Farm Transmit Partner program and Wave Farm Radio App.

In 2019, Wave Farm's Regrant Partnership with NYSCA Electronic Media & Film expanded to include two artist opportunities, five organizational opportunities, and the NY Media Arts Map, all under the umbrella of the Media Arts Assistance Fund. 2019 was also the launch of the Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellowship. The year 2021 marked the 10th Anniversary of Wave Farm's FM radio station, WGXC 90.7-FM, a milestone celebrated with a series of special events and broadcasts.

In 2022 Wave Farm celebrated its 25th Anniversary year.