Live show from Salem Art Works in upstate New York. All-day festival at rural sculpture park opens at 2 p.m. with a free103point9 Radio 4x4 (four artists performing into FM transmitters to boom boxes spread among audience). Radio 4x4 performers include a Joanne Hsieh + Marc Barreda + Andrew Sullivan + Missi St. Pierre. The day of performances will be streamed live on free103point9 Online Radio. Other performers include Bob Holman + Vito Ricci, New Randy, Gun Christmas, Next President, Syd Barrett Appreciation Society, Neptune, Megafaun, Jonathan Kane's February and special guests. free103point9 co-presents SAWfest 2008. Live webcast of performances at www.free103point9.org.

Salem Art Works will be presenting its annual, all-day, outdoor music/sound/poetry/transmission event SAWfest on July 19th from 2-11pm at its 119-acre site in Washington County. This year will see a broader scope of music, expanded to include all methods of sound-making and broadcasting. The public is invited to attend with tickets going on sale for $10 on June 1st at the SAW's newly inaugurated Visitor's Center at 19 Cary Lane or by calling 518 854 7674. The roster of talent to be performing at the event is detailed below.

Opening the day will be a special radio broadcast by fellow nonprofit organization free103point9 out of Brooklyn, NY. Starting with a 4x4 radio broadcast where four performers from the festival's roster are chosen to perform a score for four radios, free103point9 will then continue a live internet stream of the event's happenings. Several radios will be spread throughout the SAW site to enable audience members to wander freely throughout the property and listen remotely. For more information on the free103point9 and the Wave Farm, go to www.free103point9.org.

Radio 4x4
Radio 4x4 is a collaborative radio transmission performance. Four simultaneous audio performances are separately sent through FM transmitters tuned to different frequencies and are picked up by radios positioned throughout a performance space and tuned to those four frequencies. The audience becomes an active collaborator in the performance, "mixing" the audio feeds by moving about the space among the four signals. Radio 4x4 was conceived of by free103point9 staff members in 2003. Since then, over twenty Radio 4x4s have taken place in the United States and abroad. http://www.free103point9.org/transmissionprojects/

Jonathan Kane
Jonathan Kane's February (New York, NY) will headline this year's event. As a Woodstock, New York teenager obsessed with the mystique of Chicago's Southside, Kane, along with his brother Anthony, formed the Kane Bros. Blues Band. This was no standard teen garage band -- Kane was good. Very good. While other high school kids sloughed at the burger shop or studied their algebra, Jonathan Kane was lying about his age, playing bars opening for Muddy Waters and James Cotton. Kane's rise to prominence as a Downtown NYC legend began as co-founder of Swans, the seminal no-wave, New York band he started with Michael Gira in 1977. Kane takes credit for the deliberate rhythms and complexity of Swans' early work, attributing it to his lifelong love of the blues. Leading February, his six-piece, four-guitar band, Kane summons Swans' concussive wallop, then steers it all head-on into the blues. As _Rolling Stone_ sums it up: Kane is, quite simply, "volcanic." For sound samples, please visit myspace.com/jonathankane.

Neptune
Neptune's three members are equal parts musicians, sculptors, scientists, blacksmiths, electricians, and industrial machinists; relentlessly inventive, possibly sane. Together, they construct all of their instruments, forging guitars and drums out of circular saw blades, gas tanks, oil drums, bike parts, VCR casings, and miscellany from the trash. Electronics, and even cords, are homemade as well. The combined effect is a bizarre, post-apocalyptic mélange of steel, iron, wire, rust, rivet, knob, and cable; it's lunacy, arc-welded for maximum destruction. Concerts are seizures of motion. Wearing 40-pound guitars assembled entirely from scrap metal, the members don't play their instruments - they battle them, like mechanized golems. They will be in residence at SAW the week following SAWfest teaching a nontraditional instrument building and electronics workshop Sound, Object + Action, and also play late in the day on July 19th. For sound samples, please visit myspace.com/neptuneandjupiter

Megafaun
From the vibrant Southern quasi-capital of Durham emerge Megafaun, wearing earnestness across the chest and abstraction along the sleeves. They pour forth dulcet harmonies, as seeking vocals tug banjo lines up the Appalachian mountains; redemptive noise soaks everything, like thick air wafting from the Atlantic. Bury the Square, Megafaun's debut, is a triumph, bearing an essential consequence: folk music has been wrested from purist hands. Clawhammer banjo and strummed acoustics lock and roll with electric guitars and electronic textures. They don't add freak to folk or folk to freak; rather, they realize that folk implies deep, personal, intense expression, whether the instrument is a parlor piano with the lid thrown back or a distortion pedal with the case cracked loose. In this band, orthodoxy and unorthodoxy flow together as one. For sound samples, go to www.myspace.com/megafaun.

Also performing: quirky fems New Randy (New York, NY, www.myspace.com/newrandy), avant performance poets Bob Holman + Vito Ricci (New York, NY, www.bobholman.com), psych rock kids Gun Christmas (Albany, NY, www.myspace.com/gunchristmas), Marvelous Stairs (Brooklyn, NY, www.myspace.com/marvelousstairs), old school punkers Next President (North Adams, MA, www.myspace.com/nextpresident) and reverent rockers Syd Barrett Appreciation Society (Salem, NY). All performers subject to change without notice.

Peter Barrett
Opening in Barn II, also on Saturday, July 19th, is Peter Barrett's 80-foot wide mural. Barrett has been in residence at SAW during the summer 2008 season.

Join us Saturday for avant folk performances from MV & EE with The Golden Road, Latitude/Longitude, The Dust Dive, and Samara Lubelski. The Dust Dive and Latitude/Longitude open the show with a collaborative set, performing their songs in broader arrangements, including with drums.

Campfire Sounds is an annual avant folk festival organized by free103point9. Campfire Sounds 2008 is part of City of Hudson Summer Concert Series featuring eight shows. A range of sites and sounds starting May 31 at the Waterfront and ending September 6 at the Fountain Park at 7th Street. Experimental. Rock. Jazz. Circus. Kids Rock. Reggae. Punk. Films. Performance. Fun. Diversity! Free admission.

DIRECTIONS TO THE WATERFRONT PARK:

View Larger Map

Hosted by Todd Shalom, from New York Society for Acoustic Ecology. Program notes:
Introduction
Adrián Juárez y Juan José Calarco -- "Tierra Abierta"
Pablo Reche -- "Ciudad"
Icha Lohn -- Untitled
Luciano Marino -- Untitled
yY (Leandro Barzabal y José de Diego) y Tatala (Todd Shalom) play La Plata Bus Station
Brief interview with Anla Courtis (aka Alan Courtis, Alna Courtis)
Anla Courtis -- "Geyser Music"
Anla plays his house for us
Anla Courtis -- "Heavy Puna 1 & 2"
Leandro Barzabal, Xavier Charles, Leonel Kaplan y Jean Pallandre -- 5 selections from "Patagonia"
José de Diego -- Untitled
Sebastian Pappalardo -- "Timebender"
Todd Shalom -- "Onceopolis"
Aldo Benítez -- "tomasliberti_apartment_night_ventiladordetecho"

Part of City of Hudson Summer Concert Series. Eight shows. A range of sites and sounds starting May 31 at the Waterfront and ending September 6 at the Fountain Park at 7th Street. Experimental. Rock. Jazz. Circus. Kids Rock. Reggae. Punk. Films. Performance. Fun. Diversity! Free admission. Performance from Big Blue Big Band at Hudson's Waterfront Park.

Join free103point9, in collaboration with Radio Web MACBA, Barbara Held and Pilar Subirá, for a live performance celebrating Radio Action III, an online radio program produced for RWM and the next free103point9 Audio Dispatch CD Release. Radio Action III features 12 five-minute soundworks conceptually tied to the idea of “radio” as an instrument or theme, composed by free103point9 transmission artists working in collaborative teams. RWM is a radio-phonic project on the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) website that explores the possibilities of the internet and radio as spaces of synthesis and exhibition. Performances from: Damian Catera, Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson, The Dust Dive & Latitude Longitude, Joshua Fried & Todd Merrell, Tianna Kennedy, LoVid with Howard Huang, Tom Roe, and others. Attendees will receive a complimentary copy of Radio Action III with admission.

About the Performances
(In performing order.)

"Airscape"
A work by Tom Roe & Scanner
Performed by Tom Roe

"deComposition USA"
A work by and performed by Damian Catera

"When radios sleep what dreams may come"
A work by Anna Friz & Tianna Kennedy
Performed by Tianna Kennedy

"You Love Me Truly"
A work by Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson
Composed and performed by George Positive, Samuel Dishy, Maxwell McDonald, Aaron Reed, and Kevin Smith
Lyrics by Carrie Jacobs Bond

"Pistol Shrimp"
A work by and performed by Joshua Fried & Todd Merrell

"Ring in the New"
A work by LoVid and Michelle Rosenberg, in collaboration with Howard Huang
Performed by LoVid and Howard Huang

"PARTY COVE"
A work by and performed by The Dust Dive & Latitude/Longitude

About Radio Action III

Radio Action III features five-minute sound works conceptually tied to the idea of “radio” as an instrument or theme, composed by free103point9 transmission artists working in collaborative teams. 31 Down & Matt Bua comment on the consumer market’s hunger for all that is wireless. Damian Catera explores FM spectrum broadcast content as a symbol of social decline. Alexis Bhagat & Sophea Lerner utilize the transmission spectrum as a networked space for communication. Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson as well as neuroTransmitter stage reenactments and or use archival recordings in homage to historical radio experiments and actions. The Dust Dive & Latitude/Longitude infuse their musical practice with “celestial forces.” Joshua Fried & Todd Merrell, Tom Roe & Scanner, as well as LoVid & Michelle Rosenberg with Howard Huang employ the electromagnetic spectrum (signal and interference) as their sonic palette. Anna Friz & Tianna Kennedy consider conceptual and poetic radio space. Michelle Nagai with Kenta Nagai as well as radio_ruido & ben owen explore transmission and reception as a means to map an interior space.

Playlist/Tracklist

01 The Dust Dive & Latitude/Longitude, "PARTY COVE"
02 radio_ruido and ben owen, "Dandelions (c/clocked)"
03 LoVid & Michelle Rosenberg, in collaboration with Howard Huang, "Ring in the New"
04 Tom Roe & Scanner, "Airscape"
05 Damian Catera, "deComposition USA"
06 Joshua Fried & Todd Merrell, "Pistol Shrimp"
07 neuroTransmitter, "Chronicle"
08 Anna Friz & Tianna Kennedy, "When radios sleep what dreams may come"
09 Michelle Nagai, in collaboration with Kenta Nagai, "Sleep Radio"
10 Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, "You Love Me Truly"
11 31 Down & Matt Bua, "Wireless Electric Chair"
12 Alexis Bhagat & Sophea Lerner, ".00011574 Hz"

Work Descriptions

1. PARTY COVE, The Dust Dive & Latitude/Longitude
Write the artists, “This song was inspired by radio in outdoor recreational and social settings, including tailgate parties, the roving CB radio scene in the 1980s and early 1990s on Santa Fe St. in Olathe, Kansas (a popular main drag on the southern Kansas City suburbs), and camping out at the American amateur-radio Field Day marathon. We also use radio as a way to activate musical compositions with atmospheric forces, sonic wilderness, and the curious power of oral storytelling. The amateur-radio samples on this song were captured with a 1960 Drake 2-B radio. Additional singing and whistling by Bryan Zimmerman was sent through an FM transmitter.”

2. Dandelions (c/clocked), radio_ruido and ben owen
radio_ruido: 5 band monitor - ben owen: transmitter/mix
Write the artists: “Room as field with multiple radios: an improvisational finding of amplified magnetic waves within urban interior space.”

3. Ring in the New, LoVid & Michelle Rosenberg, in collaboration with Howard Huang.
Write the artists, “This recording captures interference from signals produced by cell phones operating on GSM networks. Whenever the phone is about to send or receive calls or text messages, it sends a series of signals to the nearest cell phone tower, causing interference that can be picked up by a nearby speaker or hearing aid. Phones that use other networks operate with different transmission technologies, which don't have this interference problem.”

4. Airscape, Tom Roe & Scanner
Nighttime New York insects and signals sing in London in this collaboration featuring Roe’s radio sounds and field recordings from free103point9 Wave Farm intertwined with Scanner’s hypnotic audio texturings.

5. deComposition USA, Damian Catera
Writes Catera: “An Improvisation for three live radios and algorithmic processing.
What do the airwaves tell us about decline?
Bread, circuses, ideological purification, fundamentalism?
It all seems strangely familiar......
The dance of denial.”

6. Pistol Shrimp, Joshua Fried & Todd Merrell
Pistol Shrimp is a collaborative work for processed radio. In keeping with their current practice, Fried works primarily with the rhythmic possibilities of deconstructed commercial radio, and Merrell with ambient drone transformations of shortwave, although in the past Fried has worked with drones, and Merrell with rhythms. While this is a recorded work and therefore fixed, both artists started from a live radio source. Fried cuts sharp-edged holes into the semi-discontinuous stream; Merrell fills every microscopic pore, yet both obliterate any intended sense of the original and open up the source to new interpretation. For this work, Merrell further deconstructed a 35-minute live radio performance by Fried, selected potent moments, and realigned and superimposed Fried's rhythms and motifs. Merrell then recorded live shortwave manipulations, processed them, and placed them strategically to add depth charges, sonar blasts, and ambient rhythms to the original. Pistol Shrimp is named after a sea creature that has one claw that is so large and powerful, and that clasps with such force, that its snapping sound exceeds 100 decibels (re 1 μPa at 1 m) and can kill small fish at a distance. A scene of snappy activity permeated by tidal flow, Pistol Shrimp is a homage to an imagined party of these noisy little underwater beings.

7. Chronicle, neuroTransmitter
Write the artists, “The audio composition is a mix of archival materials culled from early Radio Caroline broadcasts, focusing on the ambience of the broadcasts with references to its materiality -- the boat, the weather, the sea -- as well as the interstitial vocal moments, which measure time, space, and geography. The mix also includes sound recordings of a voyage we took out into international waters off the coast of Long Island, NY.”

8. When radios sleep what dreams may come, Anna Friz & Tianna Kennedy
Write the artists, “Radio measures the day in news, weather, sports, and traffic reports, but radio also proposes the night: the impersonal intimacy of a voice from the radio, in an ear, in the dark; a gradual awareness of other ears and barely audible voices, sharing darkness; a radiophonic night that is not easily quantified. What then, when radios go off the air, are themselves set on snooze? They fall uneasily to sleep, into heterodyne dreams; their Theremin thoughts accompanied by horns, cello, and other nocturnal transmissions.”

9. Sleep Radio, Michelle Nagai, in collaboration with Kenta Nagai.
Write the artists, “Sleep Radio is a live transmission from our apartment, to ourselves. we are working at opposite ends of the house. Baby is asleep in the middle, and life is happening outside. A listening exercise in simultaneity takes shape around two sets of parallel soundscapes - those mediated by electrified ether and transmitted to each of us through the radio, and those transmitted as vibration, straight from the source to our ears.”

10. You Love Me Truly, Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson
Write the artists, “You Love Me Truly is based on what is believed to be the first radio performance. In 1907, opera singer Eugenia Farrar Von Boos sang I Love You Truly into Lee de Forest’s radio transmitter. The singing was heard by radio operators aboard the USS Dolphin docked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, who by some accounts were caught off guard by the song during transmission tests to the ship’s radiotelephone. In 2008 we staged a performance and FM transmission of George Positive performing I Love You Truly from our studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a response 101 years later to Farrar Von Boos’ radio broadcast. This recording includes the sounds of the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the performance and broadcast.”

11. Wireless Electric Chair, 31 Down & Matt Bua
Concept and lyrics by 31 Down and Matt Bua. Music by David Fox.
Write the artists, “In 1926, Hidetsugu Yagi (co-developer of the directional Yagi-Uda Antenna) began experiments in wireless energy transfer. Now, over eighty years later, we've begun to master this concept thanks to developers like Marin Soljacic of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Where will this breakthrough lead us? What, in our wireless-dependent society, is the next device that consumers desire? Of course, it's the wireless electric chair!”

12. .00011574 Hz, Alexis Bhagat & Sophea Lerner
Write the artists, “3:31 AM a 24-hour time lapse recording
1:01 PM translocal roofscape: sample rate = 2 per hour
3:33 AM where: UTC -4hrs
1:03 PM where: UTC +5:30hrs
3:33 AM where: the roof of 4-story brownstone building in clinton hill, brooklyn, new york, with condominiums rising up on two sides
1:04 PM where: 2nd story barsarti in defense colony, south delhi
3:37 AM how: large-diaphragm condenser mic, suspended within a zeppelin, fixed with gaffer tape to a chimney, long xlr cable snaking in through an open window, plugged into
1:08 PM how: handmade mixing bowl mic lodged outside window and plugged into a small computer
3:38 AM how: cd recorder, manually activated, every 30 minutes
1:08 PM how: set to capture a few seconds every 30 minutes for 24 hours
1:09 PM why: to explore ideas about actual and imagined simultaneity in transmission networks and the translocal networked exchange between two very different cities and the respective soundtracks of their changing skylines
1:10 PM same time different place...different time”

http:www.free103point9.org
http://rwm.macba.es/

Evidence (Stephan Moore and Scott Smallwood) celebrate the release of their new CD "Receiver" (free103point9 Audio Dispatch 035), created through a residency at Wave Farm, with a re-imagined performance of the original installation. (See Evidence - Airtime performance under related events.) Bring a radio with batteries! A limited number will be provided. Evidence will be joined by the modern dance company The Extra-Sensory Pedestrians, performing a new work, "Boxed Dances."

This workshop is a special opportunity for local students (ages 12 & up) to work with the media artist collective Cross Current Resonance Transducer (CCRT). Students will learn about renewable energy and do-it-yourself electronics, and how to make artworks using solar energy and motors. This afternoon workshop, in August, will include:

* HARVESTING SUNLIGHT: Introduction, demos, and exploration of Solar Energy and Photovoltaics

* MOTOR MADNESS: Discussion of motor types, brainstorming, and experiments with DC motors.

* PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: What goes into an art project using technology? Thinking about electronic and aesthetic design and the big picture.

Pre-registration is required by August 5, for this free workshop:
Phone: 518-719-8244
Email: director@catskillcommunitycenter.org

free103point9 presents Mobile49 + free103point9 = Radio Walk: with Matt Bua, Max Goldfarb, and Tom Roe as part of a benefit event for Denniston Hill.

Max Goldfarb's M49, is a retrofit radio-utility truck (a Grumman Kurbmaster stepvan), which has been outfitted for mobile radio transmission and other additional applications. In this site-specific transmission for live performance, listeners are guided down a path by radio receivers extending from the M49 lab across the Denniston Hill property.

Listen! is our inaugural programming at the Hill. The co-curators, Josh Druckman of the Outlier Inn and kara lynch, invited artists and artist groups to contribute works to this event and encouraged them to consider the vast natural resources of its location in the Catskills mountains. Set between the Hudson and Delaware rivers, our proximity to New York City that has historically made this area a seasonal destination. In this context, the curators asked artists to consider what it means that people come to Sullivan County for 'peace and quiet' and how their sonic interventions at Denniston Hill could expand our thinking about 'quiet' vs 'noise' and how people produced audio experiences relate to those we have 'in nature'. The responses were overwhelming with projects created specifically for the site, as well as others adapted to this environment. We are pleased to host over twenty-four projects, the work of local, regional and international artists that demonstrate the diversity of sound art and performance. This event begins at 2p on Saturday, August 23 and continues throughout the evening. Food and beverages will be available with a buffet meal served from 2-5p. The musical performances begin at dusk. Out of town guests are welcome to camp overnight. The benefit event is open to the public with a suggested $25 donation. Denniston Hill is located at 43 Dennison Hill Road Woodridge, NY just off Old Glen Wild Road. Featured artists/groups: Brian Anderson, Sabrina Artel, Sanford Biggers, Sara Budde + Michael Chambers, Seth Cluett, Marcelline Delbecq, R. Luke DuBois + Lesley Flanigan, Josh Druckman, Nicholas Emmet, Joe Fioramonte, Nick Forte, "free103point9 + Mobile49 = Radio Walk" with Matt Bua, Max Goldfarb, and Tom Roe, Chris Kubik, Stephanie Loveless + E. E. Miller, k lynch, Violetta Mahon - commissioned by Jennifer Walshe, Zeljko McMullen, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky, Kenta Nagai, neuroTransmitter, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Pauline Oliveros, Will Rahilly, Runaway, Michael J. Schumacher, Micah Silver, Matt Smith, Stephen Vitiello, Patrick Walsh, Wet Ropes, and Joe Winter.

Founded in 2004 by Paul Pfeiffer, Julie Mehretu, Lawrence Chua, Beth Stryker, Robin Vachal and kara lynch, Denniston Hill, is a not-for-profit environmental arts center in the Catskills, whose mission is to create a sustainable environment in which to pursue artistic development through residences, exhibitions, and education programs and foster dialogue across disciplines.

Part of City of Hudson Summer Concert Series. Eight shows. A range of sites and sounds starting May 31 at the Waterfront and ending September 6 at the Fountain Park at 7th Street. Experimental. Rock. Jazz. Circus. Kids Rock. Reggae. Punk. Films. Performance. Fun. Diversity! Free admission. Afternoon show for kids plus music on the theme of Animals including Bindlestiff Circus, The Ping Pongs, Animental, and Wolfman Jason at Hudson's Waterfront Park.

free103point9 is pleased to host, Voices of America, a participatory Internet radio project that reflects on the media spectacle of the 2008 US Presidential Election through the lens of the Voice of America Radio Network, a US government broadcasting service intended for an international audience. The new site and custom application will launch in late August, 2008. Here's how it will work:

* RECORD up to one minute samples of election coverage on an over-the-air Voice of America station
* UPLOAD and TAG your recordings
* DOWNLOAD from the searchable pool of available recordings
* REMIX the broadcasts and UPLOAD them back to the website
* LISTEN to the recordings and remixes online anytime or to the radio broadcast at the Audacity of Desperation exhibition at the Sea and Space Gallery in Los Angeles on Election Day

http://www.voanews.com
http://desperationexhibition.blogspot.com/
http://www.seaandspace.org/

Voices of America (VoA) is created by Lee Azzarello and Sarah Kanouse. VoA is happy to be a participant in The UnConvention, a project of Art Through Technical Alternatives, Carleton College, Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, University of Minnesota Institute for New Media Studies, and the Walker Art Center.

Click here to listen to an interview with Sarah Kanouse about this project on Mediageek.

This panel, organized by critic and author Paul Smart, brings together Benjamin Krevolin, board president of the Dutchess County Council on the Arts, Norm Magnusson, known for his allegoric paintings, his faux historic roadside signs, and his Funism.com website, Tom Roe, founder of Wave Farm in Greene County and a leading proponent of the new Transmission Arts movement, currently on view at the SUNY Purchase's Neuberger Museum. Also on the panel are Sparrow, author/poet/critic, Robert The, Kingston-based conceptual and book artist with a background in philosophy, Christina Varga, Woodstock gallery owner and Brian Wallace, curator at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at SUNY-New Paltz. The panel will be streamed live on free103point9 Transmission Art Radio via a link at www.free103point9.org, or tune in by pasting http://comm.free103point9.org:8000/vanbrunt.mp3.m3u into your media player. Part of "Hudson Valley Invitation exhibition, a broad range of media and styles are represented reflective of the multiplicity of points of view held by artists in the Valley. Our region is close to one of the preeminent art capitals of the world and the artists here, many of whom show their work in New York City, are well aware of the currents of contemporary art. Some chose to go with the flow, others chose to follow their own compass. All of which makes for a fertile and fascinating panorama, well worth knowing better.

Participating artists include: Chris Albert, John Allen, Emil Alzamora, Gabe Brown, Robert Brush, Richard Butler, Richard Deon, Laura Moriarty, Alison Moritsugo, James Murray, Franc Palaia, Jaanika Peerna, Fawn Potash, Lyndon Preston, Eliza Pritzker, Molly Rausch, Angelika Rinnhofer, Robert Rodriguez, Jr., Christie Scheele, Charlotte Schulz, Michael Sibilia, Ed Smith, James Westwater, Eleanor White, Tony Moore, Simon Draper, Rieko Fujinami, Lowell Handler, Matt Harle, Thomas Huber, Peter Iannarelli, Gary Jacketti, Steven Jennis, Grace Knowlton, D.Dominick Lombardi, Susan Magnus, and Norm Magnusson.

Where are we? A simple enough question, but one not easily answered when it comes to mapping the current art scene. Especially in a region that’s part of a larger art world whose topology is in flux. The Hudson Valley Invitational at Van Brunt Gallery in Beacon this month is an attempt to indicate some of the more important artistic markers around here. With one work each from over 30 artists, the exhibition doesn’t claim to be an exhaustive survey. Many more eminently worthy artists could have been added had the gallery’s space allowed. Nevertheless, by presenting a healthy sampling of compelling works by talented artists, the Hudson Valley Invitational serves as an interesting point of departure for further exploration of our local art environment. The idea for the Hudson Valley Invitational came out of the suspended plans for a regional art fair devised by Robert Curcio of Curcio Projects and Carl Van Brunt, owner and director of the Van Brunt Gallery. Assisting in the current show are Jennifer Mackiewicz, co-curator, Bart Bridger Woodstrup, who has compiled a selection of local video artists’ work and Paul Smart, critic and author, who has put together a panel on the Present and Future of the Arts in the Hudson Valley.