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Can & String (Audio)
Can & String uses the medium of radio to play with authorized and unauthorized use of ambient audio data. It comprises a darkly satirical radio program featuring live feeds of police and emergency data from across New York State. Two fictional radio hosts deploy the affect of different styles of commercial and public broadcasting, throwing to curated feeds of frontline operations and interviewing special guests. The results will draw together a collision of different emergency streams, drawing to attention the discrepancy between degrees of official information and their access to public ears. The 60-minute pre-recorded radio feature will be complemented by an in-person Q&A on-site. Can & String brings together sound artists Kamari Carter and Julian Day for their third collaboration. Blissville (2020) used custom LED signage and video to explore hidden complexities of gentrification in Queens, New York City, focusing on a vulnerable triangle of land near Long Island City. (I Want) To Be Held (2021) featured a room-sized installation of LED lightboxes by Day and a live sonic intervention by Carter, responding to the previous year’s complex and inchoate public messaging circulating from combined protest, pandemic, and political turmoil. This new project unites two of their shared interests: the politics of eavesdropping and the conscious moderation of broadcast structures.