We will hear Citizens of Spectrum (and the perennial political provocations of the electromagnetic field), a radio play by Celeste Oram.

For 125+ years, the sheer immaterial strangeness of the radio spectrum has mounted challenge after challenge to the “commonsense” around which our world is ordered: property, territory, the greater good. For, at heart, what *is* spectrum? Is it an invisible continent? public utility? precious natural resource? transcendent ether?

This radioplay draws together contributions and responses from community engagement workshops, hosted by Wave Farm and run by Radio Art Fellow Celeste Oram, in September 2024. Both online and in-person in the WGXC Catskill studio, participants discussed the overlapping forces of law, politics, economics & technology that shape the uses of the radio spectrum, and thereby the lives of the persons within it. Solicitation of responses and perspectives is ongoing: radioplay listeners can add their voices to the spectrumchorus by calling or texting +1 (516) 522 0763.

Now as ever, the spectrum is a proving ground for some of the most urgent political recalibrations of our time: the rights and powers of corporate bodies, the nature of the democratic nation-state, Indigenous sovereignty and decolonial governance. In deliberating together over the radio spectrum, may we also find a way to walk together on the earth. More information at citizensofspectrum.xyz

Celeste Oram is a composer with equal investments in radiophonic and transmission art, as well as live musical performance in the experimental and classical realms. As a composer, her work explores the histories and micro-cultures of musical practice itself, as well as its socio-political entanglements. Her radiophonic work often engages with the histories and cultures of both public and amateur radio, and their entwined development with colonialism and nation-building—especially in her home country Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent compositions for live performance span instrumental and vocal concert music, polyphonic songs, music for period Baroque instruments, experimental music-theatre, and orchestral music for dance-theatre.