Zero Hour is a participatory radio performance that transforms the city streets into a laboratory for experiments in subliminal communication. Using a storefront or public space as a control base station, a live broadcast is transmitted to the audience outside on the street through special state-of-the-art mobile headgear: tinfoil hats outfitted with radio receivers and wireless microphones. These DIY devices allow the audience to eavesdrop on sounds culled from historic airtime propaganda, local radio stations, public transport service announcements and the surrounding environment while simultaneously redirecting their navigation through the urban landscape.

The tinfoil hat, a homemade contraption popularized in 1930's sci-fi and still used today, is believed to thwart hazardous mind control rays emitted by aliens, the government, military and random evildoers. Used as a tool to detourne participants from the typical ways they navigate familiar public spaces, Zero Hour becomes a platform for reflecting on how public information impacts our daily behaviors and shapes our value systems.

The control base station set-up includes a Ramsey FM25B transmitter and TM100 - Tru-Match FM Broadcast Antenna, audio mixer, microphones and two laptops.

The project was developed through a residency at Wave Farm in 2005. Zero Hour launched at the 2005 Infringement Festival in Buffalo, NY with Rustbelt Books serving as the control base station. Performers included Stephanie Rothenberg, Kristi Meal and Jennine Griffear. Additional performances include “Gusto at the Gallery” at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the 2008 M:ST 4 Festival in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with experimental sound artist Suzanne Thorpe. A video of the project is featured in the exhibition “Manifestos! Revolutions!” curated by artist Jillian McDonald in the online gallery “Terminal” at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.