Radius Sketchpad is an ongoing monthly program on WGXC 90.7-FM presented by the Chicago-based platform, Radius. This month features Imaginary Forces's CT Room, originally produced for Radius, and is followed by a playlist of works selected by the artist.

Tune into free103point9 Online Radio and WGXC 90.7-FM for a special radio iteration of George Quasha's expansive art is/Speaking Portraits project. This program will feature "radio portraits" in-process and broadcast live from the free103point9 Wave Farm Study Center and WGXC's Acra studio including Jim Holl, Susan Wides, Suzy Sureck, Anthony Martin, Peter Wexler, Julie Hedrick, Brian Dewan, Tom Roe, eteam, Rebecca Wolf, and others.

"art is … what?” Quasha’s ongoing video work of “speaking portraits” puts this impossible, but inevitable, question before artists themselves, who let us in on their private space of art definition. Since 2002, he has filmed around 1000 artists of all kinds (including sculptors, painters, filmmakers, video artists, poets, composers, performance artists, dancers, potters, etc.) in 11 countries (and 24 languages!). The result is an ongoing and constantly changing work called art is/music is/poetry is, which has been internationally exhibited in museums and galleries, primarily as installations, screened either as projections or on one or more monitors. You can see multiple volumes online at quasha.com/art-is.

Now, for the first time, art is will be created live and unedited for radio, where Quasha interacts with Hudson Valley artists of various kinds as he asks them to say what, in their view, art or music or poetry actually is. In his own view there is no “right” answer, but only the ideas artists themselves work from, either implicitly or explicitly. Many artist say that they don’t know what art is, but in the process of discussing it they discover that, often to their own surprise, they know very well what it is. What if art is different for every person? In a culture that tries to define things in the abstract, this could spur us to think very differently about art and how it works in our lives and in society at large. In art is the question comes alive in the moment as if asked for the first time.

In May of 2012, Soundwalk Collective traveled into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to document the ancient chanting rituals of the Ayahuasquero, the Master Shaman and practitioner of plant medicine. In this ritual, the shaman consumes a potent brew made from the Ayahuasca, a sacred vine of the Amazonian jungle, the “vine of the souls”. The brew induces a powerful psychedelic experience that causes visual and auditory hallucinations.

It is in this state that the Ayahuasquero conjures the “icaro” or magic song.

The icaro is more than song, it is a language through which the shaman communicates with the spirits of plants and animals of the jungle – he speaks through them and they sing through him. There are more than a thousand icaros, through which Ayahuasceros call on the spirits for healing, protection, or attack. Icaros can stun a snake, cure a bite, call the soul back to the body, make a sorcerer fall asleep. Icaros are “pure sound,” melodies abstracted so as to become intangible, to become air. In this intangible and most powerful form icaros allow shamans to swallow darts, visit distant planets, call the rainbow, and kill.

Blowing, rattling leaves and singing are synergistic modes of sound that are, at once verbal, unintelligible and abstract – elevating the song to something transcending language. This piece by Soundwalk Collective documents the ancient practice by inhabiting the Ayahuasquero’s soundscape where the icaros become a visceral, haunting, and consuming listening experience.

On August 24, 2012 an invited group of 30 people came together for a test run of eteam's Re:Fire. Taking the shape of digital bonfire and potluck BBQ at free103point9's Wave Farm in Acra, NY, the Re:Fire "fire" consisted of about 30 digital devices and lasted about three hours, after which most of them were burnt out.

Live webstream for this, and most, shows at Spotty Dog Books & Ale available from free103point9 and WGXC at http://comm.free103point9.org:8000/spottydog.mp3.m3u. This show will be broadcast live on free103point9 Online Radio and live on WGXC 90.7-FM.

On the tribute album Loving Takes Its Course, an assortment of high-profile Bloom fans — including Mark Kozelek, Josephine Foster and Devendra Banhart — cover Kath Bloom's early-'80s work with Loren Connors, as well as her solo return in the mid-'90s. http://www.myspace.com/kathbloomchapter

In May of 2012, Soundwalk Collective traveled into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to document the ancient chanting rituals of the Ayahuasquero, the Master Shaman and practitioner of plant medicine. In this ritual, the shaman consumes a potent brew made from the Ayahuasca, a sacred vine of the Amazonian jungle, the “vine of the souls”. The brew induces a powerful psychedelic experience that causes visual and auditory hallucinations.

It is in this state that the Ayahuasquero conjures the “icaro” or magic song.

The icaro is more than song, it is a language through which the shaman communicates with the spirits of plants and animals of the jungle – he speaks through them and they sing through him. There are more than a thousand icaros, through which Ayahuasceros call on the spirits for healing, protection, or attack. Icaros can stun a snake, cure a bite, call the soul back to the body, make a sorcerer fall asleep. Icaros are “pure sound,” melodies abstracted so as to become intangible, to become air. In this intangible and most powerful form icaros allow shamans to swallow darts, visit distant planets, call the rainbow, and kill.

Blowing, rattling leaves and singing are synergistic modes of sound that are, at once verbal, unintelligible and abstract – elevating the song to something transcending language. This piece by Soundwalk Collective documents the ancient practice by inhabiting the Ayahuasquero’s soundscape where the icaros become a visceral, haunting, and consuming listening experience.

Matt Bua and Sam Sebren host this live program from WGXC's Catskill studio, featuring Travis John's "Bioprinting" project. Audience members are encouraged to turnout in person (344 Main Street, Catskill) to experience the visual aspects of the event. "Bioprinting I – Cold War Aesthetics and Modern Vermiculture" is a generative installation in which biological specimens, namely common earthworms, are utilized to create digital prints by way of re-purposed radio-technology. Travis utilizes a primitive radio device, reverse-engineered to permit the encoding of any two audio signals into a single, modulated output. As inputs, two metallic containers containing approximately thirty earthworms each are affixed to an array pf contact microphones, enabling the movement of the worms to be amplified to a level capable of triggering the radio. Once encoded, the signal from the worms is input into a computer running open-source slow-scan radio software, originally designed to decode imagery from space flights during the Cold War (and still utilized on the International Space Station), though primarily currently used only by a small niche of ham radio operators. As the modulated worm signals are not encoded to fit within the algorithms of any particular radio protocol, the rendered images in turn become abstract chance operations in which a technological/biological symbiosis exists. Travis John's Bioprinting is included in the exhibition MARK on MAIN, Masters on Main Street's summer exhibition series in collaboration with The New York Foundation for the Arts’ Curatorial Program. For more information about this series, visit the Greene County Council on the Arts (GCCA).

Tune in to this rebroadcast of a lecture by Christoph Cox on Max Neuhaus's Time Piece Beacon. On Saturday, August 11, at 2 pm, professor and author, Christoph Cox led a one-hour walkthrough at Dia:Beacon to discuss the sound work, Time Piece Beacon, by the artist Max Neuhaus. Commissioned specifically for Dia:Beacon, Time Piece Beacon creates an aural experience around the perimeter of the museum. One of a number of works from Neuhaus’ Moment series, Time Piece Beacon introduces a regularly repeating sound, once every hour, in the galleries.

Special thanks to Melissa Parsoff, Patrick Heilman, and Christoph Cox for making this broadcast possible. For more information about Dia Art Foundation visit: http://diaart.org/.

Liminal Transmission is a theoretical and experiential research-based project concerned with testing the limits of FM radio's frequency response (30Hz - 15kHz). Using tone generators and sound art works that employ frequencies situated along the upper and lower ranges of human auditory perception, this broadcast will probe the poles of the FM frequency response spectrum through a live experiment conducted on WGXC.

Writes Cornell, "The hypothesis for the experiment is as follows:

If FM radio operates within a set frequency response range, then frequencies that are situated outside of that range are transmitted as "silence". If not silence, then what sounds will fluctuate the carrier wave?

WGXC is licensed to frequency modulate 90.7KHz with 3, 300 watts of power. If this station is transmitting sounds that fall outside of the FM frequency response range: 20-29Hz and 16-20KHz, what will be audible through the radio receivers tuned to WCGX's Frequency? Does the 2,300 watt 90.7 carrier wave contain noise? Would the result be still silence? Would a low 20 Hertz rumbling tone generate overtones that would be fed into the signal? Would harmonics or beat frequencies emerge through the ether when several sine waves between the ranges of 20-29Hz and 16-20KHz are sounding simultaneously?

It is highly possible that radio programmers with a penchant for experimental sounds may inadvertently be broadcasting "silence", because of the disconnect between radio as heard through terrestrial transmission-reception and radio as heard from within the studio, whose monitoring equipment generally has a greater frequency response than the FM spectrum. A radio tuned to WGXC's frequency in the studio during the broadcast, will facilitate the comparison between sounds heard in the studio with those received through the terrestrial transmission."

In conjunction with a staggering array of events celebrating the John Cage Centennial in 2012, Wave Farm (aka free103point9) and the John Cage Trust present a special program celebrating Cage's compositions with, for, and about radio. Selected from an open call, featured works (originating from twelve countries) comprise a broadcast on Wave Farm's FM radio station (WGXC 90.7-FM in upstate New York) and streamed online throughout a month-long program September 2012.

Join Wave Farm artist-in-residence Andrea-Jane Cornell for this afternoon workshop focused on the interpretation of graphic scores, indeterminancy, chance operations, improvisation and use of the broadcast studio as an instrument for creation.

Participants will be invited to act as "players" collaborating in Cornell's live broadcast InonoutonInoutonin on WGXC 90.7-FM, which is presented on the occasion of the month-long program 120 Hours for John Cage (co-presented by free103point9 and the John Cage Trust).

Writes Cornell, InonoutonInoutonin is a performed "comprovisation" inspired by Cage's early work in the radio studio when he worked as a dance accompanist for Bonnie Bird in Seattle. The school had a radio studio in a small outhouse building. Cage would broadcast to the dance theatre, it was during this time that Cage discovered the radio's potential as a tool for composition. He used the broadcast studio equipment (microphones and variable speed turntables) to make recordings that he used in compositions such as Imaginary Landscape No.1. InonoutonInoutonin also takes inspiration from Cage's use of radio signals as compositional material that provide an indeterminate sonic result that is a mix between recorded music, spoken word and static. My intention is to use the broadcast studio as a compositional tool and employ broadcast technology as an extended instrument that expands both time and space of the sonic materials.

12 p.m. Light lunch
1 p.m. - 3 p.m. Workshop
3 p.m. Break
4 p.m. Live Broadcast

This workshop is open to the public free of charge.
PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED
(This workshop is limited to 8 participants.)
REGISTRATION IS NOW FULL.

Wave Farm artist-in-residence Andrea-Jane Cornell (Montreal) hosts live from Wave Farm in Acra. The program will feature her contribution to 120 Hours for John Cage: InonoutonInoutonin, which will include a collaboration with participants from the workshop Score Workshop: indeterminacy, chance, improvisation taking place earlier that day.

Writes Cornell, InonoutonInoutonin is a performed "comprovisation" inspired by Cage's early work in the radio studio when he worked as a dance accompanist for Bonnie Bird in Seattle. The school had a radio studio in a small outhouse building. Cage would broadcast to the dance theatre, it was during this time that Cage discovered the radio's potential as a tool for composition. He used the broadcast studio equipment (microphones and variable speed turntables) to make recordings that he used in compositions such as Imaginary Landscape No.1. InonoutonInoutonin also takes inspiration from Cage's use of radio signals as compositional material that provide an indeterminate sonic result that is a mix between recorded music, spoken word and static. My intention is to use the broadcast studio as a compositional tool and employ broadcast technology as an extended instrument that expands both time and space of the sonic materials.

Writes Galbraith, "John Cage Reflections is a broadcast work that combines spoken word with a live performance of Cage’s Cartridge Music. An actor inspired by Cage's speaking voice will read text adapted from a 1972 interview with Cage later published as “Reflections of a Progressive Composer on a Damaged Society.” David Galbraith and James Galbraith will perform the Duet for Cymbal version of Cartridge Music. Since both the voice and electroacoustic parts will be composed using the Cartridge Music chance procedures involving graphical shapes and transparencies with dots, circles, lines and a circle marked like a stop-watch, the parts will at times overlap and compete volume-wise. Cartridge Music was included in the David Tudor 39th birthday concert in 1965, and on the program for a John Cage 75th birthday public performance in New York. “Cage was the first composer (with his Cartridge Music of 1960) to realize the potential of an electronic music made live in the concert hall,” wrote Michael Nyman in his book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond."

Radius Sketchpad is an ongoing monthly program on WGXC 90.7-FM presented by the Chicago-based platform, Radius. This month features Damon Loren Baker's Distant, originally produced for Radius, and is followed by a playlist of works selected by the artist.

"Distant" consists of white noise and sine waves that are beyond the range of most adults’ hearing. They are arranged carefully in chosen phase relationships amongst signals that are completely inaudible and have no apparent effect on the final sound. However, when broadcast using a radio transmitter (ideally a low power one, the lower fidelity and power the better) those phase relationships become mangled by the interaction of the broadcast with the environment it fills and activates. When the listener is too close to the signal, the subtleties between the phase relationships are lost. When too far, the subtleties become inaudible. However, when somewhere between near and far, the garbling of the transmission creates pulses and tones from the creative and destructive interference caused by the reflected signal and the collapse of the stereo image. The entire distant range of the broadcast radius becomes an instrument or an organism. Distant is the breath that brings this organism to life; the act of tuning in and listening to the piece forms it into sound.

Damon Loren Baker is Assistant Professor of Interactive Entertainment at CUNY CityTech in Brooklyn. He conducts research as a member of StudioBlue and the City Tech Psychology Research Lab on the creation of tools for human-computer interaction within virtual worlds for the humanities, arts, and social sciences. He is also a member of ManifestAR, an augmented reality artists group, that has been featured in the New York Times and Wired and exhibited at MoMA, ICA, and other international venues.

Wave Farm artist-in-residence David Galbraith (New York) hosts live from Wave Farm in Acra. The program will feature his contribution to 120 Hours for John Cage: John Cage Reflections.

Writes Galbraith, "John Cage Reflections is a broadcast work that combines spoken word with a live performance of Cage’s Cartridge Music. An actor inspired by Cage's speaking voice will read text adapted from a 1972 interview with Cage later published as “Reflections of a Progressive Composer on a Damaged Society.” David Galbraith and James Galbraith will perform the Duet for Cymbal version of Cartridge Music. Since both the voice and electroacoustic parts will be composed using the Cartridge Music chance procedures involving graphical shapes and transparencies with dots, circles, lines and a circle marked like a stop-watch, the parts will at times overlap and compete volume-wise. Cartridge Music was included in the David Tudor 39th birthday concert in 1965, and on the program for a John Cage 75th birthday public performance in New York. “Cage was the first composer (with his Cartridge Music of 1960) to realize the potential of an electronic music made live in the concert hall,” wrote Michael Nyman in his book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond."