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Transmission Ecologies: Episode 15 - Shortwave Collective (Audio)

Nov 16, 2024

Guest episode by the international, feminist artist group Shortwave Collective. The mix entitled ‘Open Wave-Receiver’ is an audio how-to guide on how to construct self-powered radio receivers, from the print version of their 'how-to-guide' for Make Magazine. The work collages sounds of the collective, engaged in the processes of making and listening (including recordings made during a residency at Buinho Creative Hub, Portugal), as well as the sounds of materials, experimentation and workshopping, and finally, the signals received by the Open Wave-Receivers. Shortwave Collective is an international, feminist artist group interested in the creative use of radio. Shortwave Collective are: Alyssa Moxley, Brigitte Hart, Franchesca Casauay, Georgia Muenster, Hannah Kemp-Welch, Kate Donovan, Lisa Hall, Maria Papadomanolaki, Sally Applin and Sasha Engelmann.

Curated by Afroditi Psarra, "Transmission Ecologies" explores the turbulent world of radio signals which propagate around us. Each show features a guest sound artist who broadcasts their radio experiments using EMFs, interference patterns from devices, HAM, RF field recordings, satellite signals, space astronomy research, etc. to formulate their interpretations, compositions, and translations of the invisible and unheard layer of telecommunication technologies.

"Transmission Ecologies" is commissioned by Stegi Radio / Onassis Culture.

Afroditi Psarra is a multidisciplinary artist and an Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington where she runs the DXARTS Softlab. Her research focuses on the interweaving of art and science through the creation of artifacts with a critical lens. In her projects she explores energetic phenomena like electromagnetic radiation, and technologies such as radio-frequency sensing, fractal antennas, and software-defined radio. She is particularly interested in the use of the body as an interface of control, and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. Her art practice builds on and extends the work of Cyber and Techno-Feminism(s) and the idea of bodies as archives of information, and manifests through e-textiles and wearables, performances, installations and sound art.

She has exhibited her work internationally in venues such as Onassis Stegi, Bozar, Laboral, EMST, Ars Electronica, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Amber, Piksel, and WRO Biennale between others, and published at conferences like Siggraph, ISWC (International Symposium of Wearable Computers), DIS (Designing Interactive Systems), C&C (Creativity and Cognition), and EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts).