Lea Bertucci and Ed Bear’s project, ExiTrip, breathes new life into the iTrip Nano FM device as a self-contained open-source hardware platform for subversive/creative acts. Approximately fifty artists will be invited to participate. Each will be provided with a modified device with which to create a new work. The projects will be compiled and documented through a multimedia web and print catalog.

Write Bertucci and Bear, “We have selected this specific outmoded device, the iTrip Nano FM transmitter, to exemplify the potential impact of re-engineering consumer devices originally destined for landfills. At 40¢ each on Ebay, the low price creates unprecedented distribution opportunities for a low-power transmitter and encourages end-user experimentation. An express goal of this project is to empower artists with diverse technical and economic backgrounds to create works using radio. This constitutes a social experiment involving creative responses to a common tool. The end product, an online and print multimedia book, will provide detailed technical instruction for the iTrip hack, document the resulting artists’ projects, and provide critical and historical context to the newly created work using material in free103point9 archive.”

Lea Bertucci and Ed Bear are 2010/2011 free103point9 AIRtime Fellows

Visit exitrip.org for up-to-date information about the project.

Selected collaborating artists and project descriptions:

LoVid (Kyle Lapidus and Tali Hinkis) LoVid sent video components through three ExiTrip devices and ran the signals through their analog synthesizer, Sync Armonica. Beyond simply using the ExiTrip transmitters to facilitate production, LoVid was interested in the limitations of these devices. Particularly, the increasing noise to signal ratio with increasing frequency, made vertical lines almost imperceptible once passed through the transmitters. By combining wirefull and wireless signals, videos were recorded and stills captured. These reflect both clear, pure signals and interference from nearby bands. Special thanks to Antonio Biermann. More info here: http://exitrip.org/Projects.html#lovid

Ben Owen is working with us to program the microcontroller in his ExiTrip to synthesize sonic sequences that he will integrate into his recordings and live performances.

Roy Shearer, a Glasgow based "Post-Industrial Designer" made his ExiTrips into a children's toy. His "Mouseymitter" is modeled after a toy train but contains a microphone, antenna and transmitter that broadcasts the mic-ed sounds to an external radio. For pics and more info, please see: http://exitrip.org/Projects.html#roy

Ric Royer is busting the big ghosts using the ExiTrip. EVP communications through the wireless world bring spirits and audible apparitions to light.

G. Lucas Crane is working on a project titled Down Comes the Final Wall that confounds notions of public and private space. He will integrate the ExiTrip into his ongoing Non-Amoral Surveillance project in which his living space is mic-ed and fed to a mixer and tape player, effectively amplifying the voices of anyone that enters the house. He will transmit sounds of the surrounding Queens neighborhood into the mix of his house and conversely, will transmit sounds of his house to selected outside locations.

Victoria Keddie and Bradley Eros are working on a collaborative project titled Cygnus atratus: The Swan Device that involves the call and response of dual broadcast transmission within the context of animal mutation... "Using the transmitters as a communication device, we aim to build a mimetic dialogue through the vocal patterns of the swan. There will be two itrip transmitters that will perform this call and response. In transmitting the raw and manipulated sounds of the swan, we hope to intercept signals, allowing teams of participants to "tune in" as well as amplify our signal as a continuation of this responsive action."

Joe Milutis will contribute an essay to the ExiTrip book that follows the (de)evolution of these types of consumer transmitter devices, from the iRock through various permutations of iTrip from the perspective of the consumer. His piece explores notions of user interface and the implications of an artist-hacked device.

Keiko Uenishi (o.blaat) has been using the ExiTrip for a site-specific outdoor installation for a residency and festival 'Paivascape' curated by Portugal's binauralmedia.org, funded by Meet the Composer/Global Connections grant. We worked with Keiko in October to build RF amplifiers for 12 ExiTrips, which boosted the range of transmission to about 100 meters. For her piece "Paiva Games: Sound Dam", she placed the transmitters along the banks of the river, layered and extended several signals from transmitters to transmitters, creating an additive sound piece using field recordings she collected in collaboration with children in two villages (Espiunca & Canelas) along the river Paiva. The listener is supposed to experience the piece by strolling the riverside and listening to the transmitted sounds mixed with the real-time sounds on site. Final presentation will be in the early March 2011 in Espiunca, Portugal. (Main url is currently being created. Updates at http://facebook.com/oblaaat)

Marcia Basset is using her ExiTrips for both solo and collaborative experimental drone performances. We are working with Marcia to replicate a sound that an electrical short in one of her devices has caused. She has discovered how to create an analog oscillator out of the digital circuits. It sounds like an amazing pipe organ!!! She is interested in creating a touch sensitive controller that will allow her to play the ExiTrip like an instrument and fully integrate it into her musical setup. http://www.zaimph.org/

Lea Bertucci and Ed Bear recently used a pair of ExiTrips in a performance in Brooklyn. For this show, we broadcasted our electroacoustic instrument's signals to handheld radios that we distributed among audience members. Our acoustic sounds were embellished through the crackle of FM transmission and electronics. The audience experienced our sound in a directly physical, intimate manner. Some interesting feedback effects were also produced during the performance. A video is available here: http://vimeo.com/16662382

John Also Bennett has been working with the ExiTrip in the context of a public sound installation. Situated in one of the most hectic and congested intersections of Columbus, OH, his ExiTrip will broadcast soothing, meditative sounds to unwitting drivers who happen to have their radios tuned to particular stations. His project concerns displacing psychological space through sound, and references the original use of the ExiTrip as an in-car transmitter. We worked with him to build an RF amplifier using components harvested from old VCR's that Ed had lying around the studio. http://www.johnalsobennett.blogspot.com/

Patrick McGinley (Murmer) will be using is the ExiTrip in the context of his live performances. American born and now based in Estonia, he has been using distributed sound sources and collaged field recordings in his live performances for many years. His subtle and often ethereal music takes on a new dimension in live performance, where he provides his audience with an immersive listening experience through transmission. We look forward to seeing how the ExiTrip will manifest in his work. http://www.murmerings.com/

Cammisa Forrest is using her ExiTrip as a wireless lighting mixer for her wooden Chroma Organ that she built while attending Parsons. She will take advantage of the mesh network that Ed is developing to control colored lights that correspond to various pipes in the organ. The resulting will be an extraordinary sonic and visual experience. Here is a video of Cammisa playing the Chroma Organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-pgLVK3VY8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYa1JoSuM3o

Zach Layton will be using the ExiTrip for a project titled Megawatt Mind which investigates the relationship between brainwaves, sound and radio waves. He will explore the parallels that exist between meditation and musical practice. The ExiTrip will be programmed to hop to different radio frequencies (stations), continuously modulating based on the nature of the rhythmic and melodic shape produced by varying states of consciousness, interpreted and made audible using an EEG device. More can be seen here: http://www.free103point9.org/works/497

Tianna Kennedy will be contributing to this project in essay form. In her writing, she will explore radio as a space of possibility, the manifestation of radio in its material (hardware) and immaterial (broadcast) forms. She will also focus on contextualizing this project, and the projects of other transmission artists, in terms of community building and the polymorphus space that is created through pirate radio.