free103point9 welcomes Laura Hadden and Tennessee Watson to Wave Farm this spring as the 2013 season’s first Artists-in-Residence. The two were selected from a competitive international field of candidates for a two-month residency at Wave Farm in Acra. This residency marks an exciting partnership between free103point9 and The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)’s Live Interactive program, encouraging experimentation with place-based media and the transmission spectrum in new ways.

Hadden and Watson’s project Wage/Working addresses the issues of income inequality and the concept of wage through a time-based transmission installation and a radio broadcast series on free103point9’s WGXC 90.7-FM. During their time in Greene County, these two accomplished radio producers and artists will be collecting stories and interviews with workers in Greene and Columbia counties regarding their jobs and their relationship to their work.

The stories will be edited to a length, which corresponds with the amount of time it takes each individual to earn $1, creating an inverse relationship between monetary value and time. Those who earn the least are given the most time to speak and the actual value of time can be experienced and internalized by those experiencing the installation, drawing attention to the contrast between the workers at the both ends of the range and profiling workers across the spectrum.

“We are deeply inspired by American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster Studs Terkel and imagine this project in many ways to be a modern, transmission-based adaptation of his efforts to bring the experiences of workers in conversation with one another. The content of our project draws from the oral history tradition that Terkel popularized, while simultaneously utilizing and problematizing the data-driven journalism that is popular today,” says Hadden and Watson.

Visit Laura and Tennessee's Wage Working blog at wageworking.com.

LOCAL STORIES AND PARTICIPANTS WANTED!
HADDEN AND WATSON ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING PARTICIPANTS TO BE INTERVIEWED FOR THEIR PROJECT WAGE/WORKING PROFILING THE DIVERSITY OF WORKERS IN THE GREENE AND COLUMBIA COUNTIES COMMUNITY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INCLUDED PLEASE CONTACT LAURA AND TENNESSEE AT WAGEWORKING@GMAIL.COM OR (518) 314-9675 (THAT’S 518-314-WORK).

About Laura Hadden and Tennessee Watson:
Hadden and Watson were cited in 2011 by the International Documentary Challenge in the Best Film and Best Directing categories for a previous joint project, Matthew 24:14. The collaborators have a diverse history working in documentary film and radio. Laura Hadden is an independent media producer who spent the last three years producing projects for the storytelling organization The Moth in New York City. Before that, she facilitated workshops at The Center for Digital Storytelling and was an apprentice and community media producer at KPFA in Berkeley, CA. Tennessee Watson is a multimedia producer based in Brooklyn, NY. Prior to moving to NY, she spent four years at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University producing documentaries, instructing courses and coordinating Youth Noise Network, a radio project for teens in Durham, North Carolina.

About The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR):
Boston-based AIR (www.AIRmedia.org) is a vibrant, tightly networked association of more than 900 journalists, documentarians, technicians, media entrepreneurs, and sound artists working at the front edge of public media reinvention. Its programs are designed to identify, cultivate, and deploy gifted talent for the benefit of citizens across the world.

AIR’s Live Interactive Residency Program is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which believes that a great nation deserves great art.