Tune in for a conversation with Wave Farm's Radio Program Director, Meredith Kooi, and artist and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) PhD student Natan Diacon Furtado! Kooi visited EMPAC’s Studio Beta earlier this week to talk with Diacon Furtado about their project Community Portal. The project is an open-source ancestral projection and transmission tool that engages the public in embodied collaborative listening through the re-purposing of naval navigation and paranormal investigation technologies. Dierdre Shea and Julian Goldman from Troy-based Fun Stuff Design are also featured here. They worked in collaboration with Natan to design the project’s antennas. Community Portal is open for public participation on Friday, November 7th from 10-2pm in Studio Beta at EMPAC.

The Community Portal utilizes a water-filled metal bowl which is modified to become a ground-plane liquid antenna, engaging the FM radio spectrum as a space for investigation and recuperation of community connection(s). Connecting this antenna to a laptop converted into a software-defined radio “spirit box” allows a hand placed into the water to audibly modify the signals that are received. Additional hands placed into the water merge and amplify the antenna's signal, sharing agency and intention between you, your community, and your watershed, opening a space for joyful meaning-making and the potential to receive site and self-specific messages from other(ed) ancestral imaginations.

Tune into the “Wednesday Afternoon Show” for national news, interviews with community leaders and personalities, reports on cultural issues, a rundown of public meetings and local and regional events, weather updates, and more about and for the community, made by volunteers in the community.

WGXC is always looking for contributors who have an interesting idea for a recurring segment. Apply here!