Off The Grid features contemporary works which formally and/or conceptually challenge conventional and commercial infrastructures.

Co-presented by the Neuberger Museum of Art and free103point9. Curated by Jacqueline Shilkoff (Neuberger Museum) and Galen Joseph-Hunter, Tianna Kennedy, Tom Roe (free103point9)

Curators’ Statements

Has humankind’s irresponsible production and consumption of energy and resources reached its peak? While regulatory agencies scramble to meet and control the demands of a wireless-obsessed market, a burgeoning urgency about the need to be ecologically responsible has emerged. Off The Grid presents work by thirteen artists examining and reacting to these currents. Works on view propose alternate territories. They repurpose, reuse, and recast communication devices, consumer byproducts, and environmental data. Our culture has long relied on creative practice to invent, innovate, and inspire. Here, the participating artists do so with works that inform, alarm, and entertain.
– Galen Joseph-Hunter

Most of us live, work, and play on the grid. The artists in Off The Grid do not present utopian solutions to complex problems (unsustainability, overconsumption, waste, alienation), but rather invite us all to reinvent, reimagine, and subvert our daily practices through accessible work completed on a human scale. I've enjoyed my conversations with the artists in this exhibition and have been reminded that cultural gridlock is best addressed not with sweeping gestures and apocalyptic arguments, but by working within, around, and perhaps a little outside expectations of art and engagement.
-Tianna Kennedy

The grid is a shifting network of power, distributing social, ecological and intellectual resources. Individuals have agency to engage or withdraw, privatize or empower, collude or disclose. By reevaluating what resources exist and how they are allocated, we redefine our collective identity and personal ideology. It is hopeful that art as activism, as intervention, can produce awareness and change.
-Jacqueline Shilkoff

Checklist of exhibited works
(Please select an artist or work title from the menu to the right for additional information.)

Matt Bua
World Grid – Square World, 2008
ink, collage, paint, pencil on paper
39 x 63 1/2 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York

Benjamin Cohen, Dylan J. Gauthier, and Stephan von Muehlen
Mare Liberum, 2008
blueprint, distributed broadsheet, boat
broadsheet: 24 x 36 inches, boat: 12 feet
Courtesy of the artists

EcoArtTech: Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint
Environmental Risk Assessment Rover - AT, 2008
solar panels, recycled shipping pallets, industrial garden wagon, video projector, MAC-mini computer, GPS, WiFi, found built and natural surfaces
Courtesy of the artists

eteam International Airport Montello, 2007-08
three-channel projection, map, figures, photographs
Courtesy of the artists

Max Goldfarb
Ambulant Transceivers, 2008
vintage first-aid kits made into two-way radios
Courtesy of the artist

Louis Hock
Nightscope Series, 1985-2003
digital pigment prints
17 x 24 inches each
Courtesy of the artist

Louis Hock
Feral, 2004
two-channel video installation
sound: Louis Hock and Peter Otto
Courtesy of the artist

Nina Katchadourian
Quit Using Us, 2002
c-print mounted on aluminum
18 x 96 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Sara Meltzer Gallery

Nina Katchadourian
Ant Static, 2003
video loop with sound
Courtesy of the artist and Sara Meltzer Gallery

Kristin Lucas
More Melting, 2008
wax, wick, fire
Courtesy of the artist

Joe McKay
Hi Hat Phone, 2007
cell phone, high hat stand, wood, speakers
Courtesy of the artist

Trevor Paglen
Workers / Las Vegas, NV / Distance – 1 mile, 2006
from the series Limit Telephotography
video
Courtesy of the artist and Bellwether Gallery, New York

Trevor Paglen
Chemical and Biological Weapons Proving Ground / Dugway, UT / Distance – 42 miles / 10:51 a.m., 2005
from the series Limit Telephotography
C-print, 3 from an edition of 5
50 x 50 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Bellwether Gallery, New York

Trevor Paglen
Unidentified Light Source / Cactus Flats, NV / Distance – 17 miles / 9:45 p.m., 2007
from the series Limit Telephotography
C-print, 1 from an edition of 5
30 x 36 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Bellwether Gallery, New York

Temporary Services
Personal Plastic, 2007
photocopied and offset publications, mounted photographs, banners made from plastic bags, unwanted plastic bags
Courtesy of the artists

Seth Weiner
Cryptographic Payphone, 2008
interactive payphone, chaotic motion system
63 x 15 x 10 inches
Courtesy of the artist

Bart Bridger Woodstrup
Gathering Lore, 2008
computer, custom video software, electronic sensors, weather
Courtesy of the artist

free103point9 Online Radio presents "Winter" live from an undisclosed location -- the NYSAE igloo.
Giant Ear))) March 2008 -- Theme: "Winter"
Hosted by the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology members Andrea Callard and Jonny Farrow, the first half of the show will center around a discussion of art economics and art practice as well as the inscription of noise as an art practice. The second half of the show we will listen to sound submissions centered around the dying sounds of winter as a Spring "kiss-off" to the frosty old man! We will be playing submissions from: Andrea Polli (sounds from summer in Antarctica -- penguins and such!!!), Ben Owen, Dallas Simpson, George Weinish, Michael Trommer, Olivier Nijs, Scott Sherk, Seth Cluett, Steve Burnett, Thomas Park, Edmund Mooney, Jonny Farrow and Andrea Callard.

Four sound artists are each invited to create an unchanging radio broadcast. Reacting to a radio culture which accustoms us to the division of time into a grid of discontinuous slices, "Simulcast 1.0b : Saskatoon" is a temporary condition webcast on www.free103point9.org during April, 2008. Four artists are each asked to create an unchanging sound or soundscape. Each of these is webcast continuously over seven consecutive nights. The resulting month-long series reflects on radio's relationship with night and proposes a renewal of radio's relationship with eternity.
"Simulcast 1.0b : Saskatoon" is curated by Montreal-based sound artist Emmanuel Madan, at the initiative of the Saskatoon media arts production centre Paved Arts. The webcasts are hosted by free103point9, a New York-based nonprofit arts organization devoted to Transmission Arts. Webcast nightly on free103point9 Online Radio at www.free103point9.org, April 1 - 28 2008.
Schedule:
Martine H. Crispo (Montréal) "Danby;" April 1 to 7, midnight to sunrise.
GX Jupitter-Larsen (Los Angeles) "Big Time Crash Bang 2008;" April 7 to 14, sunset to sunrise.
Magali Babin (Montréal) "7 nuits sous le Westinghouse;" April 15 to 21, midnight to 6:36 a.m.
Harold Schellinx (Paris/Amsterdam) "Tot morgen (à demain);" April 21 to 28, sunset to sunrise.
All times Central Standard Time (GMT -6). Sunset and sunrise times as observed in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

"Western broadcasting is tyrannized by an instrument we have accepted as inviolable: the clock... Radio has become the clock of Western civilization, taking over the function of social timekeeper from the church bell and the factory whistle," said R. Murray Schafer in “Radical Radio,” In EAR Magazine, “Festival for a New Radio” supplement, March 1987.

The idea of "programming" in radio is indissociable from notions of time: we speak of the programming "grid" which represents the subdivision of time according to a two-dimensional Cartesian co-ordinate system; a "schedule" which presumes predictability, punctuality, and periodicity. The time "slots" thus created are further dissected within the confines of each individual programme: news is expected on the hour, weather every seven to ten minutes, regular breaks for advertising spots of 30- or 60-second duration[s] punctuate the remainder. Music programmes fill their time with a battery of pre-recorded songs of similar length; these are then assembled into playlists whose duration is also fixed: "Stay tuned for another thirty-minute non-stop Rock Ride," said a radio DJ on CHOM-FM, Montreal, 2007.

Put simply, radio broadcasting today is an almost exclusively rhythmic affair. Other types of broadcasts do exist, of course. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled upon one in 1965, while researching an entirely different phenomenon. They were convinced that their radio telescope was malfunctioning until they realized that they were in fact receiving a signal which had been rocking the universe (commercial-free) since the moment radiation began separating from matter, that is, shortly after the Big Bang. "Scientifically, radio is as old as time," wrote Neil Strauss in the introduction to "Radiotext(e)," published by Semiotext(e) New York 1993.

"Simulcast 1.0b : Saskatoon" proposes to renew radio's link with eternity. It asks four artists to provide a sound, only one sound, which broadcasts continuously and unchangingly for a period of between six and ten hours each night on www.free103point9.org. Each artist's sound is broadcast during seven consecutive nights. As late-night radio listeners well know, strange things can happen on the radio after midnight. There is something about the solitude of night-time listening which brings out radio's best and most original attributes. The densely-packed conformism of daytime programming is loosened. Many smaller broadcasters do not have the resources to staff their station with live DJs during the night hours and resort instead to pre-recorded or automated alternatives. It is unfortunate that the responsibility of broadcasting through the night is often seen as a burden, an unpopular time-slot which is difficult to fill. "Simulcast 1.0b : Saskatoon" recasts the problem as an opportunity, a short test-run for Radio Eternity.

Much has been said about radio's power to transcend space. The standard definition of the word "simulcast" refers to a live broadcast of some public ceremony: a football game, a coronation, a political debate, a state funeral. Events like these bind listeners together, joining disparate spaces into a single location. "Simulcast 1.0b : Saskatoon" applies the idea of simultaneity to time, rather than to space. By bathing listeners in an event which remains unitary for a period of many hours, it suggests a simultaneity between all moments of a broadcast: a collapsing of a long period of time into a single instant.

Schedule

Martine H. Crispo (Montréal) "Danby;" April 1 to 7, midnight to sunrise.
"Danby" is a broadcast composed of a single sound that is the most pervasive in our interior environments: 60 Hz. The frequency 60 Hz is the soundtrack to the electrical currents that power our radios, our appliances, our light. Yet, it is a soundtrack so prevalent in our everyday lives that only at night in the absence of noise do we realize that silence is continually filtered through the buzz and hum of electricity. "Danby" transmits an unchanging loop of the 60 Hz recorded from an everyday household object. By juxtaposing this constant frequency with the 60 Hz that is no doubt also present in listeners' homes, "Danby" creates unpredictable variations and harmonies - a spontaneous simulcast of the singular sound that infiltrates our lives.

GX Jupitter-Larsen (Los Angeles) "Big Time Crash Bang 2008;" April 7 to 14, sunset to sunrise.
"In the 1980's, whenever I wanted to create an all-night broadcast using only a single sound, I would take a long tape-loop and play it through multiple playback heads. This technique always provided a seamless sound sculpture. For "Simulcast 1.0b : Saskatoon," I did something different. Instead of using analog based repetition, I took a short recording of 40 seconds and digitally stretched it into a single ten hour long wave form. The original recording was that of an auto accident, which is a favourite sound source of mine. The resulting effect is very much like ceaseless grinding. Which also happens to be a favourite of mine," wrote Jupitter-Larsen.

Magali Babin (Montréal) "7 nuits sous le Westinghouse;" April 15 to 21, midnight to 6:36 a.m.
"This piece is a recording of seven consecutive nights, each lasting 6 hours, 36 minutes. Two microphones are placed under a ceiling fan on the second floor of a central room in my house. Under the fan hangs a mobile composed of photographs of family members and close friends, illustrating different episodes from my past. In the foreground of the recording we hear the motor of the Westinghouse fan as well as the waving of the photos in the wind. In the background, we can distinguish the ambient sounds of our house at night, as we pass into sleep and back into wakefulness. Over the seven nights, the only measure of time is the evolution of the ambient sounds in the background, changing with the hours of the night and the nights of the week. "7 nuits sous le Westinghouse" is an intimate sound track which offers a view (or a listen) into the passing of time, the memories it leaves us and their effects on our identity," wrote Babin.

Harold Schellinx (Paris/Amsterdam) "Tot morgen (à demain);" April 21 to 28, sunset to sunrise.
In "Tot morgen (à demain)" a chord consisting in two tritones ('diaboli in musica') that overlap each other by a semitone sounds 140 times forwards and 140 times backwards. The unlawful sequence of these soundings forms a palindrome. It spans the interval that separates the beginning of a next day from the end of a previous one, the end of a previous day from the beginning of a next... "until, again, the roar of dawn." (In the first measure of Stockhausen's "Klavierstueck IX," the same chord is played 140 times in an evenly spaced decrescendo that lasts 48 seconds.) "...tezelfder tijd duizend duivels van beneden en van boven duizend goden ..." - a thousand demons from below and from above a thousand gods [ Tip Marugg - De morgen loeit weer aan (The roar of morning), 1988 ].

In conjunction with the exhibition Off The Grid, April 2 will feature a day of live performances by artists whose work subvert and circumvent conventional infrastructures.

4 p.m.: Radio 4x4 Four performers -- Joshua Fried, Matt Bua, Alexis Bhagat, and Tom Roe -- perform into four transmitters with performances transmitted to radios throughout the performance area. Audiences are encouraged to walk among the radios, "mixing" the collective and individual improvised performances. For this Radio 4x4, performers will all use battery-powered equipment, and all transmitters and radios will also not be plugged in. Brief explanation and discussion of Radio 4x4 with the artists after performance.

4:45: Joshua Fried, Radio Wonderland. Fried performs his "Radio Wonderland" show with a car battery.

5:30 p.m.: Jeff Stark, Secret DinnerThe Secret Dinner project is just that. The dinners are collaborative and they happen in clandestine spaces. The first was in a grain elevator in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 2006, and we lowered a singer into an echoey steel silo. The second was the site of the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, where we suspended an aerialist from the massive steel Unisphere. And at the third, we ate in the Freedom Tunnel, under Riverside Park in Manhattan. The Secret Dinner project was influenced by Dark Passage, a group of New York explorers, and the Suicide Club, a long defunct group of San Francisco pranksters. The project is a reaction to a culture of permission, including expensive venues, city permits, and institutional funding. It reminds participants that the most important thing is doing the thing, and that it's possible to create work that compromises only to logistics. This talk will feature gorgeous photos by Tod Seelie that document the project.

6:15 p.m.: Matt Bua. Artist talk.

Sunrise to Sunset: Mare Liberum workshop. Mare Liberum Sunup-Sundown Build A Boat Workshop: Benjamin Cohen, Dylan Gauthier, and Stephan von Muehlen will construct a 12' Grand Banks dory over the course of a day using materials salvaged from construction sites, basic tools and old-time intuition. The artists will be available to discuss the project over pauses for lunch, afternoon tea and dinner

Earlier in the day, their will be a Kites are for Peace exhibition. Kites are For Peace and Love is a one-day social engagement with the surrounding Westchester community. It is an open invitation to come together to make and fly kites in the wind and sun, all the while keeping in mind that the same wind power that fuels a kite, can also generate our electricity. Information will be on site relating to simple and effective ways that we as individuals can make a substantial difference in the path toward environmental sustainability. In addition, there will be kite-making workshops held at the Neuberger Museum of Art leading up to the event. This event is organized by John Daquino.

'Snow Dance' “Brooklyn’s August Sound Coalition brings audio recordings and experiments celebrating winters past, lamenting their loss, their mayhem and attempting to conjure their precipitate evidence in all its forms. With recordings from Tianna Kennedy and James Blackshaw, Slavoj Zizek, and Tarikh Korula.” Radia is a network of independent radio stations, including free103point9, who have a common interest in promoting and producing artworks for the radio, and in forming related projects based on broadcasting and cultural exchange. Radia members produce a weekly radio show that is broadcast by each of the member radio stations. The shows represent the local artistic community of each station, whilst at the same time these new works point to an emergent collective notion of self-determined art for radio. Other stations in network besides free103point9 include Radio Campus (Belgium), Radio Grenouille (France), Kanal 103 (Macedonia), Lemurie TAZ (Czech Republic), Orange 94.0 (Austria), Resonance 104.4-FM (UK), Tilos Radio (Hungary), Radio Zero (Portugal), Radio Panik (Belgium), bootlab (Germany), SounDart Radio (UK), InterSpace (Belgium), and Orf Kunstradio (Austria). http://www.radia.fm/

Neighborhood Public Radio is an independent, artist-run radio project committed to providing an alternative media platform for artists, activists, musicians, and community members. free103point9 NYC staff join NPR at their Whitney storefront to discuss our respective projects and play live music together. Listen in!

Greg Fox, free103point9 intern, shows senior artwork and plays music with Family of Love, Teeth Mountain, and other friends. The performance incorporates a radio broadcast from the nearby Bard chapel into the gallery space. Artwork will remain on display for the week.

Giant Ear))) Sound Mamori: Amazon Rainforest Sound Memories
Curated by Andrea Williams of the NYSAE. Armed with nothing but gigabait and sound equipment, in November 2007, 11 fearless sound artists led by sound artist/biologist Francisco Lopez, trekked through the jungles of Brazil in search of sounds, took part in classes and workshops, engaged the local community, and ultimately were annihilated in a futbol match between the Brazilians. This Giant Ear))) special reveals through sound pieces submitted by the participants of the sound art residency, the spectacular sonic qualities of the Brazilian rainforest and conveys a sense of place created through sound memory and the mind's own subjective collective mapping of a place that was off the maps. Participants include: Ruben Garcia (SP); Francisco Lopez (SP); Pali Meursault (FR); Novi_sad (GR); Sam Hamilton (NZ); Todd Shalom (US); Simon Whetham (UK); and Andrea Williams (US).

Noise! is a sound performance festival started in 2005. free103point9 curates for the second year. Each year the "Incubator" program at Ontological Theater hosts a Noise! festival, a three-night multi-arts event designed to promote interest in new forms of sound art. The festival will feature short compositions and performances by established and emerging artists.

Each evening opens with a Radio 4x4 as the audience enters the theater. Radio 4x4 is a free103point9 collaborative radio transmission performance. Four simultaneous audio performances are separately sent through FM transmitters to radios positioned throughout a performance space. Each radio receives only one of the signals, so that the audience becomes an active collaborator in the performance, "mixing" the audio feeds by moving about the space among the four signals. Other artists will perform each evening.

Thursday, May 8
Curated by Tianna Kennedy
Opens with Radio 4x4 with Tianna Kennedy + Mark Anderson + Jordi Wheeler + Tyler Nolan
Lith (Jordi Wheeler)
Diamond Terrifier (featuring Sam Hillmer from the Zs)
Dome Theater (Forrest Gillespie directing "Fucked for Real")

Friday, May 9
Curated by Tom Roe
Opens with Radio 4x4 with Giancarlo Bracchi + Tom Roe + Slink Moss + Michael Garafalo.
Bunnybrains
Michael Garafalo (Latitude/Longitude)
Giancarlo Bracchi
Tom Roe

Saturday, May 10
Curated by Damian Catera
Opens with Radio 4x4 with Damian Catera + () + Tom Roe + John Baird
Skyline
Damian Catera
Andrea Parkins

Watch and listen to video and audio LIVE from Noise! and Experimental Music at Ontological Theater May 8-10, 2008. Refresh browser if image or audio freezes.

Open house for Catskill Community Center's newly renovated Welcome Center with a performance from the Catskill Drum and Bugle Corp. free103point9's Dharma Dailey and Liza Dichter will host information about the new FM community radio station free103point9 is bringing to Greene and Columbia counties. Learn how to do radio interviews, and find out how to get involved in the future FM station. The Greene/Columbia community radio project will start online in the fall, and allow local residents to take the mic, and also air local high school sports, town council meetings, shows for students and parents, seniors, gardeners, and more. At the community center May 10 free103point9 will set up a small radio "studio," and Dailey and others will teach radio journalism skills. In the gym meet CCC program facilitators, and other community groups, and learn more about what the Community Center has to offer. In the gallery, Susan Wides and Fawn Potash will also be showing their photography and mixed-media artwork. Upstairs, children will be able to make art and crafts projects, and take them home for Mother's Day. 5-9 p.m.

Tianna Kennedy will present a series of Radio Lab workshops at the International High School at Prospect Heights. The workshops will introduce students to tips and techniques for recording and editing audio, conducting interviews, webstreaming, and podcasting. Recorded student interviews will be part of a 9 min DVD in collaboration with freeDIMENSIONAL for Zero 1 (SJ01) festival in San Jose June 4-8. About International High School: The International High School @ Prospect Heights empowers recent immigrant students by teaching them fluency in reading, writing, speaking, and understanding English through a rigorous curriculum that is language rich, interdisciplinary, and project based. Students learn to think critically, navigate societal constructs, and prepare for college and other education after high school. Students, staff and families create a caring school environment that promotes collaboration, cross-cultural interaction, and appreciation of diversity. Above all, International High School students become successful contributing members of society and conscientious global citizens of the future. http://www.ihsph.org/

About freeDIMENSIONAL: freeDimensional engages in a particular style of networking that builds on existing resources in the art, media and entertainment sectors in order to engage and financially underwrite direct actions necessary to help culture workers-in-distress and use their stories to illustrate critical, contemporary issues. Art and creativity are often commodified without acknowledgment of the social issues they represent, and thus the relation between culture and society erodes. freeDimensional seeks to strengthen this relation by taking practical steps to ensure individual safety, raise awareness and instigate change. http://www.freedimensional.org/about/index.html

About Zero One Festival: ZER01: The Art and Technology Network is a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring culture on the edge of artand technology. The organization convenes artists and technologists, showcases their collaborative efforts,sponsors artistic initiatives and presents the resulting work to the public. ZER01 is the producer of 01SJ, A Global Festival of Art on the Edge that consists of groundbreaking installations, interactive performances and new cinema. http://01sj.org/