Pyrite Radio – Field Dispatch activates short-range field radio transmissions with audio research over a series of sculptural Pyrite Radios. The opportunity to transmit using Wave Farm’s rural location, audio archive, and site-specific installations provides a platform to test and perform improvised radios with varied, dynamic, and responsive programming. This project is part of a larger series spanning several years and iterations, initially forming around historical research into a mining misadventure in the American West. Also referred to as fool’s gold, Pyrite alludes and distorts. In common abundance this mineral’s reflective mirror facets sparkles give it the superficial appearance of gold, a fact that misled many eager explorers to believe they found their fortune. Charging the stone’s more hidden potential has since been the major subject of this work; as is the question how material can be employed to expand the reach and address a diversity of audiences. Simensky’s sculptural radios and transmissions have interacted with structures that embody the idea of transmission such as Radio Towers adjacent to the Bay Bridge, sites of extraction such as the Bronson Canyon Bat Caves in Los Angeles (with live audio by Shelley Burgon and Fodo Sossoko), and iconic artworks such as Rodin’s Thinker in the courtyard of San Francisco’s Legion of Honor.

Peter Simensky is an transdisciplinary artist who has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art; Museum 52, Museum 500meter, Sapporo; and Project Row Houses, Houston. Simensky’s performances and installations have been featured at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA LA, The Swiss Institute, Wattis Institute, the ICA San Francisco, 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, Cabinet, and the de Young Museum. He has received grants, residencies, and awards including: NYFA Fellows Grant, Oregon Arts Commission / Hallie Ford Family Opportunity Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants, MacDowell Colony, La Tallera Proyecto Siqueiros, and Skowhegan to name a few. Selected group exhibitions include at The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Sculpture Center, Palais de Tokyo, Mass Moca, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, and Socrates Sculpture Park. Simensky Chairs the Graduate Fine Arts MFA at California College of the Arts.

Wave Farm's eighth annual Audio Buffet and WGXC Programmer Picnic took place on Saturday August 5, 2023. In 2015, Pauline Oliveros and IONE donated the 32-channel mixing board they once traveled the world with to Wave Farm. Their generous and meaningful donation serves as the fulcrum for the Audio Buffet event, where dozens of acoustic and electronic sound artists come together for a live collaborative and improvisational broadcast on Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM from 2 - 4 p.m.

2023 performers: Rowen Aster, Ed Bear, Lucas Brode, Nathan Cervoni, Craig Chin, Courtney Conte, Brian Dewan, Jeff Economy, Paul Feitzinger, Luke Fischbeck / Lucky Dragons, Chris Funkhouser, Kenji Garland, David Goren, Pat Gubler, Jen Kutler, Evan Lindorff-Ellery, G. Lucas Crane, Matt Luczak, Zach Layton, John Lutz, Tom Miller, Patrick Quinn, Bradford Reed, José Alejandro Rivera, Ric Royer, Jack Schoonover, Peter Simensky, Rory Solomon, Vriska Weaver, and Quintan Wikswo.

Faraday Dream is a radio-based interactive sound installation that makes tangible the hidden but ever-present field of electromagnetism around us. It sonifies the relationship between humans and electromagnetism via custom-built partial Faraday cage radio sculptures that block radio waves unless a human (or other entity) is nearby. It also makes audible the beating between adjacent radio bands, painting an aural image of the sea of electromagnetism in which we forever swim.

Lathrop Duo consists of Dayshon Mathis (Jacksonville, FL) and Mike Mulshine (Queensbury, NY). Mathis is a theoretical physicist studying quantum gravity and black holes. Mulshine is a musician and sound artist who creates interactive intermedia and explores new ways to make musical experiences more engaging. The pair met when they became roommates by chance and since then have reflected on the world's mundane and complex problems via many late night conversations. They understand electromagnetism and waves from different angles (Mathis from physics, Mulshine from music) and have found that this unique combination yields a lot of interesting interdisciplinary insights. They are excited to explore and demonstrate this intersection at Wave Farm.

Join Rethinking Residencies in celebrating the publication of Bringing Worlds Together: A Rethinking Residencies Reader. Founded in 2014, Rethinking Residencies is a network of New York–based artist and curator residency programs. The group generates knowledge and resources, anchored together in cooperation and collaboration. Bringing Worlds Together: A Rethinking Residencies Reader is the first anthology on art residencies published in the United States. It is a companion to the Rethinking Residencies Symposium, which invited artists, curators, scholars, and residency organizations to address residency programs as critical sites of research and production within the visual arts. The eleven essays and three conversations in Bringing Worlds Together reflect on art residencies at present—at a time when residencies play a critical role in art’s ecosystem. They address a cross-section of ideas about residency programs, bound together by a deep concern for the care and ethics that go into shaping residency programs and hosting artists and curators.

Books will be available for purchase at the Launch Event, and can be pre-ordered here.

Commissioning Editor: Rethinking Residencies. Editors: Kari Conte and Susan Hapgood. Authors: Nova Benway, Eve Biddle, Jamie Blosser, Tania Candiani, Viviana Checchia, Kari Conte, Christina Daniels, Robin Everett, Dylan Gauthier, Susan Hapgood, Galen Joseph-Hunter, Jeffrey Kasper, Irmeli Kokko, Catherine Lee, Eileen Jeng Lynch, Sally Mizrachi, Howardena Pindell, Sanna Ritvanen, Nat Roe, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Nicholas Weist. Graphic Design: Esen Karol. Size: 8 ½ x 5 ½ inches. Page Count: 128. Publication Date: August 13, 2023. Edition Number: 1st edition. ISBN: 978-1-7320876-3-7. Price: 25 USD Paperback and Free Digital Version

Rethinking Residencies collaborating organizations represent a wide range of models, scales and approaches and include: Abrons Art Center, Eyebeam, Fire Island Artist Residency, Flux Factory, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), The Laundromat Project, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Queens Museum, Pioneer Works, Recess, Shandaken Projects, EFA Project Space’s SHIFT Residency, Triangle, Wave Farm, and Wave Hill.

Quiet, and Sometimes Silent is a participatory experience that explores proximity, intimacy, and subtle communication. Consisting of two soft head pieces equipped with flapping and buzzing mechanisms and a fabric speaker, the experience asks one participant at a time to put on the device, as does the He, from a certain distance away. The wearable pieces talk to each other through LoRa, a wireless protocol that enables small data-packet transmissions using a free, hobbyist radio frequency. As the participants approach each other, lightly touch their own head piece in different ways, the other person's piece will morph into different shapes – flapping, shrinking, producing buzzing sensations and movements. Together, two people create a unique soundscape for each other to experience while turning themselves into mutating sculptures, assisting them to communicate with nonverbal subtlety. This project draws correlation between protocols outside of heavily surveilled mass superstructures and the state of acquainted human relationships, exploring the idea that small movements and sporadic data exchange can resemble our loose social connections with the people around us.

Viola He is a Shanghai-born, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural organizer. Their creative practices engage with DIY electronics, programming, dance/movements, and various time-based media, exploring pathways towards alternative systems, interfaces, and infrastructures. They create immersive experiences, installations, and improvisational performances using algorithmic approaches to enhance, alternate, and obfuscate audio-visual assets, investigating the contradictions of analog aesthetics and digital tools. He often dreams about computational humor, collective learning, and infiltrating digital spaces with physical bodies as tools for intervention.

Wave Farm is delighted to announce that Lia Kohl will serve as Wave Farm's Radio Art Fellow September - November 2023. During her engagement, Kohl will make additions to the Wave Farm Broadcast Radio Art Archive online resource and to the syndicated weekly radio show "The Radio Art Hour." Kohl will also conduct workshops and listening sessions with WGXC programmers and interested members of the public, and create original radio artworks for broadcast.

Lia Kohl is a composer, cellist, and sound artist based in Chicago. Her wide-ranging practice includes solo composition and performance, installation, improvisation, and collaboration. Kohl tours nationally and internationally, working in theater, jazz, rock, and experimental contexts. Her work centers curiosity and patience, an exploration of the mundane and profound possibilities of sound.

The radio-frequency spectrum for human cellular phone communication has increased in frequency as we have increased the speed and capacity of information between communication points. There has been little discussion about the impact this increased frequency–and the much smaller wavelengths it travels in–might have on beyond-human species who live alongside us and along transmission pathways. Refuge System for Ants contemplates the effects wavelengths above 5 Ghz might have on ants, whose small body size makes them more susceptible to impacts of absorption of these frequencies. Many species of ants communicate acoustically, and can sense vibration through specialized organs on their legs. Humans are largely unaware of these cryptic sounds that are beyond the limits of human hearing. How does our ease of communication interact with their own communication and quality of life? Schonberg will install prototypes for “EMF refuge systems” that attempt to block cellular radio frequencies in the vicinity of ant nests at Wave Farm, giving the ants refuge from its effects at their sites of congregation, reproduction and shelter. At these sites, humans will be prompted to listen to the sounds of ants amplified through speakers, bringing our attention to insect agency and needs.

Lisa Schonberg is a composer and percussionist creating sound works based on ecological research. Informed by her background in entomology, Schonberg is interested in how listening to cryptic sound can reveal and challenge assumptions about insects and other overlooked soundmakers. She has been collaborating with Brazilian entomologists on ATTA (Amplifying the Tropical Ants), a project investigating ant bioacoustics in the Amazon. Her other recent work includes investigations of old-growth forests in Oregon, endangered Hawaiian Hylaeus bees, mushrooms, and plastics. Schonberg's compositions are performed by percussion ensembles Secret Drum Band, Antenna, & UAU, and presented as solo performance and installation. She is the author of Text Scores for Getting to Know the Invertebrates, The Hylaeus Project, and the The DIY Guide to Drums, and has presented work or performed at FILE Festival (BR), the Pompidou, the Brooklyn Museum, Bosque da Ciencia (BR), the American Museum of Natural History, and Museo Reina Sofia (SP). Schonberg has developed her work through residencies at Labverde, the Banff Centre, Pioneerworks, HJ Andrews Experimental Station, and Signal Fire.