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WGXC Afternoon Show: Raven Chacon (Audio)
In the first hour, after the local news, Tom Roe is in conversation with Raven Chacon to discuss his upcoming exhibition at Swiss Institute, which includes a collaboration with Wave Farm.
On the occasion of Raven Chacon's solo exhibition, A Worm’s Eye View from a Bird’s Beak, at Swiss Institute, NY (January 25 – April 14, 2024), Wave Farm Radio will serve as a listening station for Chacon's work, Still Life No. 4. In a new iteration of the work, Chacon sounded and recorded a Diné drum housed in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian that had rarely been sounded since being in the collection. Believed to have been made in about 1960, this Diné drum was acquired at Taos Pueblo in the 1970s. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the beat of the drum is played back at SI, and at other listening stations, including Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM. The beat of the drum is played at different tempi, ranging from fast to slow the further each station is located from the drum.
About the pacing of the drum pulse
The pace of the drum hits scale from the listening station's relative position to the physical drum. The pulse is scaled, on one end, setting the closest point as a point approximately 0.1 miles from the Cultural Resources Center, where the drum is housed, at 180 beats per minute (to avoid dealing with problems around approaching infinity). On the opposite end, the farthest listening location, at the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum in Tromsø, Norway, is 3,864.30 miles by flight, and is scaled to one beat every five minutes, or 0.2BPM.
Each listening station in between these extremities is scaled in an inverse linear relationship (technically, using the equation f(x) = -0.047 * x + 180). That relationship creates the following pulse paces at these respective listening stations, in order of increasing distance from the drum:
CRC, NMAI, Washington, D.C.: 0.1 miles, 180BPMSwiss Institute, NYC: 203.69 miles, 170.43BPM
Wave Farm, Acra, NY (Upstate): 283.28 miles, 166.69BPM
Ma's House, Shinnecock Reservation, NY (Long Island): 294.02 miles, 166.18BPM
Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock, AZ: 1,770.55 miles, 96.78BPM
Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø, Norway: 3,864.30 miles, 0.2BPM
Raven Chacon is a composer, performer, and installation artist born at Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. A recording artist over the span of 22 years, Chacon has appeared on over eighty releases on national and international labels. He has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at LACMA, The Whitney Biennial, Borealis Festival, SITE Santa Fe, The Kennedy Center, and more. As an educator, Chacon is the senior composer mentor for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP). In 2022, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Voiceless Mass, and in 2023 was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship. http://spiderwebsinthesky.com/
The "WGXC Afternoon Show" features local news, interviews with community leaders and personalities, a rundown of local and regional events, weather updates, and more about and for the community. The show is a place for a community conversation about issues, with music, and more. Saturday the emphasis is more on radio art, and art on the radio. Unlike shows by individual programmers on the station, the "WGXC Afternoon Show" is considered partially station-run. The Sunday version calls itself "Li Le, Le Tan." Tune in for local news, interviews with community leaders and personalities, reports on cultural issues, a rundown of public meetings and local and regional events, with weather updates, and more about and for the community, made mostly through volunteers in the community through WGXC. The Catskill Makers Syndicate produce the "Better Weather" for the show. Gloria and Arielle host the "Las Brujas Bilingues" segment every Wednesday afternoon. Philip Grant and Tom Roe bring you the weekly WGXC Congressional Report, with reports about the representatives and candidates of New York's 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st Congressional Districts. Interview segments from Justin Maiman from his "Ginger Radio Hour" are often heard on this show, as are movie updates from Jenny Ghetti and Amanda Lees and their "Dim The Lights" program. Tune in for the "Food Segment" from Tepper B.T. on the second Monday of the month. "Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson ValleyThe Ag Report is produced by Brendan Donegan and covers local farmers. The Month Ahead at Cornell Cooperative Extension with Deven Connolly" previews agriculture-related events. There is also The Month Ahead with Chosen Family Zine" from Mike Amari; an event organizer for Opus 40, Basilica, and others; and Liam Singer; the owner of The Avalon Lounge in Catskill, NY and a member of Wave Farm's Board of Directors. Interviews by hosts of the "WGXC Morning Show" also get played back here occasionally. Some reports come from our partner station, WOOC-LP in Troy, out of The Sanctuary for Independent Media. Tom Roe also cuts up local and national news with songs and sounds for the show. The show begins each day with local headlines, weather, and previews of community events. Also tune in for national headlines from the Public News Service on WGXC. Sometimes national, state, or local press conferences, meetings, or events are also broadcast live here. WGXC is always looking for contributors who have an interesting idea for a recurring segment on either the "WGXC Morning Show" or the "WGXC Afternoon Show." Email your idea to info@wgxc.org.