The Radio Art Hour: Lee Perry, Dieter Kovačič, Kui Dong

Mar 18, 2023: 3pm - 4pm
WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears

90.7-FM in NY's Upper Hudson Valley and wgxc.org/listen everywhere
http://www.wgxc.org/

Standing Wave Radio

wavefarm.org/listen and 1620-AM at Wave Farm
https://audio.wavefarm.org/transmissionarts.mp3

Produced by Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellows and Artistic Director Tom Roe.

Today tune in a pop song from Lee Perry, and radio art works from Dieter Kovačič and Kui Dong. "Einmal Rückkopplung und retour," or “Once feedback and back,” is a reflexive radio piece from Dieter Kovačič originally broadcast on ORF in 2005, composed of a series of feedback-related compositions by Dieter Kovačič. Interspersed with German-language question-and-answer segments between the artist and a distorted, computer-generated voice, Kovačič considers the topic of “feedback” in broad strokes, from the invention of regenerative circuits in 1913—an important milestone in the development of radio—to feedback’s use as a design principle by musicians like Jimi Hendrix. Particularly, Kovačič muses on the history of positive feedback, a phenomenon that seven different inventors in the United States and Europe claimed to have discovered independently, resulting in a patent battle. The topic is close to the artist’s heart: Kovačič’s grandfather had worked as an assistant for Alexander Meissner, an Austrian engineer who had observed the principle separate from its official originator Edwin Armstrong. Additionally, Kovačič considers himself a “conscientious copyright-objector,” both appropriating copyrighted material in his music and encouraging his work to be shared freely, making his focus on the historical episode particularly rich. Between the dialogic interludes, the sonic matter of the piece is often harsh and repetitive, composed with a system utilizing a shortwave radio, an Internet streaming server, and patches on the visual programming language Max/MSP. The result manipulates appropriated collaged sound and digital feedback, at times resembling 1990s computer speaker interference or a poorly-grounded amplifier. - Introduced by Wave Farm Radio Art Fellow 2022-2023, Tyler Maxin. Then tune in "Flying Apples" by Kui Dong. An algorithmic composition that takes the listener into the colorful, playful, and fantastic realm of an unfinished childhood dream. Programmed in Small-talk language, using extremely nested patterns based on a repeated three-note motive, the work was completed on newly developed software operating on a Mac workstation at the Computer Center of Research in Music and Acoustic, Stanford University.

Welcome to "The Radio Art Hour," a show where art is not just on the radio, but is the radio. "The Radio Art Hour" draws from the Wave Farm Broadcast Radio Art Archive, an online resource that aims to identify, coalesce, and celebrate historical and contemporary international radio artworks made by artists around the world, created specifically for terrestrial AM/FM broadcast, whether it be via commercial, public, community, or independent transmission. Come on a journey with us as radio artists explore broadcast radio space through poetic resuscitations and playful celebrations/subversions of the complex relationship between senders and receivers in this hour of radio about radio as an art form. "The Radio Art Hour" features introductions from Philip Grant and Tom Roe, and from Wave Farm Radio Art Fellows Karen Werner, Jess Speer, Andy Stuhll, José Alejandro Rivera, Tyler Maxin, and Iru Ekpunobi. The Conet Project's recordings of numbers radio stations serve as interstitial sounds. Go to wavefarm.org for more information about "The Radio Art Hour" and Wave Farm's Radio Art Archive.

Wave Farm / WGXC Acra Contact Info
info@wavefarm.org
info@wgxc.org
Mailing: PO Box 13 Acra, NY 12405
Main Office / Acra Studio
(518) 622-2598
WGXC Office
(518) 697-7400
WGXC Hudson Studio
(518) 828-0290
WGXC Feedback
(518) 212-7509 feedback@wgxc.org
Wave Farm / WGXC Acra Studio: 5662 Route 23 Acra, NY 12405
WGXC Hudson Studio: 369 Warren St. Hudson, NY 12534