KOOPT is a low-powered FM radio installation hosted by CO-OPt Research + Projects in Lubbock, TX. The installation is site-specific and only accessible by listening while positioned within approximately 150 feet of the gallery door. KOOPT radio can be heard 24/7 by tuning a traditional radio to 89.9 FM. Listeners in cars are invited to pull into the CO-OPt parking lot and park to experience the broadcast more fully. The KOOPT initiative was started during the pandemic as a way for visitors to engage with the gallery from the relative safety of their vehicle. Another benefit, apparent during my earliest conceptualizations of the project, is the potential connection between CO-OPt’s experimental music offerings and its gallery exhibitions.

The work featured on KOOPT has been shared with the limitations of the medium in mind. KOOPT is hyperlocal and unpredictable due to broadcast interference as well as the narrow “throw” of low-power FM transmission. The experience of listening involves sound going in and out of audio “focus”—a work rises above the noise for a moment and then is subsumed by chaos, a position in the parking lot that offers clear listening to 89.9 FM on one day fails to provide that the next, listeners driving by in a car are greeted by equal parts static and organized sound in rhythmic succession.

Sometimes, the content of KOOPT is contributed by artists currently exhibiting in the gallery. At other times, the transmission operates independently, allowing us to share the work of a larger number of creators and possibly engage with the artwork on display in a dialogic manner. Additionally, our CO-OPt members have frequently created work for transmission.

Why radio? Radio as a medium feels especially relevant to the contemporary public sphere, given its longstanding entanglement with the amplification of political speech and more recent role in the development of late 20th century/early 21st century American conservatism.