free103point9 presents its annual fall festival of radio art and experimentation presented during three nights and one afternoon featuring radio installation, performance, theater, walks, and a transmitter building workshop, with live video web streams. This year's festival features Tony Martin's installation and instrument Light Pendulum, which will be on view preceding each evening performance, as well as performed on Saturday night.

RADIO THEATER: Thursday, October 22, 8 p.m. $7-10
RADIO SPACE: Friday, October 23, 8 p.m. $7-10.
RADIO LAB: Saturday, October 24, Noon – 4 p.m. $50 registration fee (includes transmitter kit & lunch.)
RADIO WALKS: Saturday, October 24, 4:30 & 6 p.m. Free
RADIO LIGHT PENDULUM: Saturday, October 24, 8 p.m. Free

Featuring works, performance, and presentations from: 31 Down, Brett Ian Balogh, Jason Grote, Andy Gunn, Tony Martin, Mudboy (Raphael Lyon), murmer, Michelle Nagai, New York Society for Acoustic Ecology, Radio Wonderland, rise set twilight, and Tom Roe.

Performance and Workshop details:

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RADIO THEATER
Thursday, October 22, 8 p.m. $7-10 sliding scale.

31 Down radio theater’s RED over RED is a brutal collision of radio silence and an airplane plummeting to earth. Communication between an air traffic controller and a loner pilot disintegrates in this erotic tale of death. This is a mysterious and moody work of sonic destruction about a pilot and the nosedive.

Jason Grote presents original radio plays from WFMU's Acousmatic Theater Hour; plays created by Grote, Karinne Keithley, and others to be featured.

Mudboy (Raphael Lyon): IS:IS is a live performance by Mudboy channeling Philip K Dick's The Martian Time Slip. Part of the Impossible Duets series of compositions.

RADIO SPACE
Friday, October 23, 8 p.m. $7-10 sliding scale.

murmer: Patrick McGinley (aka murmer) is an American-born sound and performance artist who has lived and worked in Europe since 1996. In 2002 he co-founded framework, an organization that produces a weekly radio show on London's resonance104.4fm. His work concentrates on the framing of sounds from our environment which normally pass through our ears unnoticed and unremarked, but which out of context become unrecognizable, alien and extraordinary: crackling charcoal, a squeaking escalator, a buzzing insect, or one’s own breath.

rise set twilight's (Cross)Talk Radio employs vintage AM radios, tuned to "empty" bands between stations and at the ends of the dial, to create feedback with each other. The resulting sounds are be combined with field recordings and projections to create enveloping blankets of noise and light.

Radio Wonderland: Joshua Fried turns the very bits and bytes of commercial culture into the driving backbeat to our dance of independence. In this developing solo, Fried abstracts live FM radio with laptop, electrified shoes hit with sticks, and a computer-hacked steering wheel (from a Buick 6).

RADIO LAB
Saturday, October 24, Noon – 4 p.m. $50 registration fee (includes transmitter kit & lunch.)

free103point9 Radio Labs provides workshop participants with technical skills and contextual background to consider and utilize the transmission spectrum for creative expression. This workshop will address four main topics: the history of broadcasting; how transmitters work; online transmission tools; and transmission arts as a creative medium. Workshop participants will join Andy Gunn (free103point9 & Prometheus Radio Project), and Tom Roe (free103point9) for a transmitter-building workshop. Each participant will complete the workshop with a low-power FM radio transmitter of their own. This workshop is limited to 12 participants. There is a $50 materials fee (includes lunch). Please contact gjh [at] free103point9.org with questions. Secure your spot by submitting your registration fee via PayPal:

RADIO WALKS
Saturday, October 24, Noon 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Free
Presented in collaboration with Art in Odd Places 2009: SIGN, an annual festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.: Scratch Track Brett Ian Balogh.

Artist Brett Ian Balogh hits the streets of Manhattan, transmitting the sounds of the street as he makes his way along 14th. In tow is a red wagon outfitted with a specially-constructed tonearm that converts the grooved palimpsest of the street into a sonic texture that is broadcast over FM radio. The broadcast represents an infiltration of the personal spaces created by isolating technologies such as car interiors and earbuds, reminding us that there is a street beneath our feet.

6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.: free103point9 Radio Fest Mobile Soundwalk for Art in Odd Places 2009 New York Society for Acoustic Ecology (NYSAE).

Members of the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology (NYSAE) will lead public soundwalks involving mobile broadcasting equipment. The public (soundwalkers) will use small FM receivers and headsets to tune in to multiple, simultaneous broadcasts from three mobile broadcasting units (carried by NYSAE members) all broadcasting different material on the same frequency starting from three different (Madison Square, Washington Square, Tompkins Square) parks north and south of 14th street. The different broadcasts will be a mix of several elements, pre-recorded nature sounds, historical soundscapes, and live broadcasts of the walk itself. The walkers will be lead, meandering across and around 14th street, eventually converging/colliding their broadcast perimeters separating again –hearing their own walk and hearing the other walk simultaneously. Walkers will also be able to hear the soundscape over their headphones as they walk and listen to the broadcast, experiencing a sort of hyper-reality through physical presence in the soundscape, the sounds of the broadcast and the overlapping of the broadcasts when the broadcast areas collide. The walks will all begin at the same time and are timed to strategically overlap. The approach to the end of the walk is marked by the eventual reception of a broadcast from the Ontological Theater location. The groups then all arrive at the prescribed time at St. Mark’s church and enter the theater for the evening’s performances and installation presentations. Total time for the walk will be approx. 60-90 minutes.

RADIO LIGHT PENDULUM
Saturday, October 24, 8 p.m. Free

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.: Light Pendulum Reception
Join us for a toast in celebration of Tony Martin���s Light Pendulum

Tony Martin: A founder of art works using light, Tony Martin has, since the 1960's, created seminal new media works. Light Pendulum is a new work that is controlled by site-specific environmental conditions including light, sound, and motion. Light Pendulum functions both as a stand-alone kinetic sculpture as well as a temporal instrument used in a performance-based setting. Light Pendulum is comprised of a six-inch diameter glass pendulum suspended with nylon line from the installation space ceiling. An LED pin-light is installed at the top of the line. The pendulum’s motion is caused by the earth’s rotation and conditions of air movement. A large parabolic mirrored dish is installed directly underneath the pendulum. Receptors and sensors are positioned at the center of the dish. These receptors function as photocells, photovoltaic cells, and other signal and current producing and regulating components.

Light Pendulum is made possible, in part, with funds from Harpo Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.

9:00 p.m.
Artist Michelle Nagai performs Long Summer with Tony Martin's Light Pendulum.

Michelle Nagai utilizes sound, physicality and concept to create site-specific performances, installations, radio broadcasts, dances, walks and other interactions that address the human state in relationship to its setting.