Three Transmissions from a Carceral State is a live performance and radio broadcast bringing together three sound archives connected to the history of imprisonment in Upstate New York. The first set of recordings derives from a practice of listening to the electromagnetic and acoustic environments of active and decommissioned prisons in Wave Farm’s vicinity. The second set draws on Wave Farm’s archive of radio programs highlighting the analysis of imprisoned people, their families, and communities. Finally, a third set of recordings engage with current abolitionist organizing in Upstate New York. The three sound archives will be mixed in real time to evoke the prison as a physical structure and a discursive site. Listening to its past, present, and future, the project seeks to contribute to the abolitionist imagining of imprisonment’s afterlife.

Hans Kuzmich is a Belarusian interdisciplinary artist and scholar whose work attends to gender as an interface between subjects and the state with the desire to unsettle their regulatory logics. Working from a trans, diasporic position, Kuzmich creates moving image and sound installations that foreground phenomena on the edges of visibility and audibility, such as infrared light and electromagnetic fields. Kuzmich is currently completing a hybrid doctoral dissertation in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, a BFA from the Cooper Union, and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program. Kuzmich has been awarded artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Studios at MASS MoCA, and SOMA Summer. His work has been exhibited at Art in General, the Kitchen, the 8th Floor, Poetry Project at St. Marks Church, Performance Project at University Settlement, Temporary Agency, and Not An Alternative/No-Space (New York, NY); Underground Museum, New Wight Gallery, and Pacific Design Center (Los Angeles, CA); AS220 (Providence, RI); Beirut (Cairo, Egypt); and SOMA (Mexico City), among other venues. Kuzmich’s writing has appeared in journals (Theory, Culture & Society, Art Journal, and Native Strategies) and exhibition catalogs (Imagine Freedom: Art Works for Abolition, New Wight Biennial: Compassion Fatigue, and Sharon Hayes: There’s So Much I Want to Say to You).

Wave Farm in Partnership with The Avalon Lounge

Applications Due: January 10, 2025

Wave Farm is pleased to announce a unique opportunity, in partnership with the Catskill, NY performance venue The Avalon Lounge, for 2025. Two individuals will be selected from an open call for a 40-week Mentorship Program (February - November 2025). Mentees will learn the ins-and-outs of presenting independent and experimental performance in a community setting. Each mentee will receive a stipend of $5,000 in conjunction with the program. They will work closely with mentors Liam Singer (The Avalon Lounge, Wave Farm) and Ben Seratan (Basilica Hudson, The Avalon Lounge) on a weekly-basis to develop skills in sound engineering and event management, including artist relations, curation, booking, promotion, streaming for radio broadcast, and documentation. Mentees will also participate in Wave Farm’s “All Things Audio” a monthly workshop series, designed to help attendees develop sound skills to share their stories through best practices for recording, editing, and live radio.

The details:

• Applications Due: January 10, 2025
• Notification: Mid to late January
• Stipend: Mentees receive a $5,000 stipend. Note that participants will receive a 1099-NEC
• Time Commitment: Mentees will be expected to commit approximately five hours a week for 40 weeks, February through November 2025. Please note: This is an in-person engagement. Applicants should be prepared to be physically in Catskill, NY one to two days a week, February - November 2025.
• Education: Additionally, mentees will be automatically enrolled in Wave Farm’s monthly workshops series “All Things Audio,” taking place the first Thursday of each month, 6 - 8 p.m., in-person at the WGXC Catskill Studio, February - November 2025.

Selection panel will use the following criteria in their review:

• Candidate is excited about working with the community. 
• Candidate appreciates a wide variety of music, and is willing to work with a wide variety of genres. 
• Candidate will benefit from hands-on learning, and has the ability to learn the skills to be developed in the mentorship.
• A history of producing events is not required, but will be considered an asset in the review process

Questions: Contact info@wavefarm.org