Makena Kelly reports in The Verge that on Jan. 3 President Joe Biden again nominated Gigi Sohn for a seat on Federal Communications Commission. The FCC has been deadlocked with two Republicans and two Democrats, and critics say Biden did little to get the nomination approved by the Senate. Sohn co-founded the Public Knowledge activist group in 2001 and was chief there until taking a position as counselor for then-FCC Chair Tom Wheeler in 2013. She was nominated in October 2021, but never got a vote. Corporations such as Comcast have lobbied against Sohn in fear of facing more regulations, and Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz claims Sohn would censor conservatives even if executives at radical right-wing news networks Newsmax and One America News Network support Sohn's nomination and praise her longtime commitment to free speech. There is more optimism now about the approval of Sohn's nomination with an extra Senate seat for Democrats after this fall's election. But Democrat Sens. Mark Kelly, of Arizona, and Catherine Cortez Masto, of Nevada, have yet to come out in favor of Sohn's nomination. Read the full story in The Verge.

Andrew Cunningham reports at ARS Technica that New York Governor Kathy Hochul did sign the The Digital Fair Repair Act before the Dec. 29 deadline, making it the first right-to-repair bill in the nation. For years, consumers, if they want new electronic devices, have been forced to buy them with no way to fix them without involving the company that made the product, The new law requires companies to provide the same diagnostic tools, repair manuals, and spare parts to the public that they make available to their own repair technicians. Hochul made a few changes, weakening the bill before signing, on "technical issues that could put safety and security at risk, as well as heighten the risk of injury from physical repair projects.... I am pleased to have reached an agreement with the legislature to address these issues," Hochul wrote. The law will not affect any electronic device anyone currently owns. Instead, only devices manufactured and sold in New York on or after July 1, 2023 will be required to meet the law's requirements. And only the public, not businesses or the government, will benefit from the law as "business-to-business" and "business-to-government" equipment that isn't sold to consumers is excluded from the law. Even with all the exceptions, consumer advocates are crowing. “This is a huge victory for consumers and a major step forward for the right to repair movement," wrote iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens. "New York has set a precedent for other states to follow, and I hope to see more states passing similar legislation in the near future.” Still activist Louis Rossmann explained how bad the changes to the bill are for consumers. "It getting passed without being tainted or screwed with would actually be good for society, and that's not something that [the] New York state government is going to allow to happen," Rossmann said. Read the full story at ARS Technica.

Commercial Carrier Journal reports about how the Federal Communications Commission's expansion of citizens band radio from AM and single-sideband to include FM frequencies will impact truckers and others who use CB radios. Currently the 40 channels on CB radios are on the 11 meter band, from 26.965 MHz to 27.405 MHz, considered AM radio. Upper and lower single-sideband modes can be selected on higher-end CBs among those 40 channels to provide improved AM transmissions with greater power and range. The FM frequencies being added will come in clearer. The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley says that FM frequencies will provide an “improved signal to noise ratio (about 25dB) with regards to man-made interference” over the current AM frequencies. “This is going to bring a lot of good things for professional users of the CB radio band like truckers because a lot times when the skip’s really rolling and the [solar] cycle is at its peak, sometimes it can interfere with truckers communicating up and down the highways. FM is really going to cut that down,” amateur radio expert Matt Kaskavitch. FM signals won't travel as far, but will be much clearer. “[FM] is going to provide for better clarity of signal and better short-range communication without having to worry about people from all over the country and really all over the world when the cycle is at its peak interfering as you’re trying to talk a few miles up and down the interstate,” Kaskavitch said. Read the full story in the Commercial Carrier Journal.

Elle Kehres reports for Radio World that according to Edison Research 38 percent of Americans aged 12 and older listened to a podcast in the last month. Many radio shows are also podcasts, and the subscribable audio shows all use internet radio signals to deliver programming. That's an estimated 109 million Americans tuned in to podcasts, at least sometimes. But a higher percentage of listeners in England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand tune in to podcasts than in America. Perhaps because of the popularity of the mostly-talk podcasts, there has been a 45 percent increase in America in the time spent listening to spoken word audio since 2014. For those aged 13–24, Edison Research reported an 117 percent increase in listenership in the last eight years. Read the full story in Radio World.

The Broadcast Law Blog reports that comments are due by January 9 for the Federal Communications Commissions new rules about foreign government sponsorship identification. Questions about foreign ownership of the airwaves of America usually pop up in times of paranoia, misinformation, and propaganda, so there is little surprise the FCC’s Media Bureau would consider this issue now. The bureau wants comment on proposed rules for all buyers of program time on any broadcast station (or those who provide any pre-produced programming received for free) to provide verification if programming comes from a “foreign government entity,” i.e., a foreign government or one of its agents. Then, shows from a foreign government entity would be subject to extensive public disclosure obligations. Read more about this story at the Broadcast Law Blog.

Kevin Purdy reports at ARS Technica that the folks who cheered months ago when New York's legislature passed The Digital Fair Repair Act, the first right-to-repair bill to entirely pass through any state legislature are now waiting nervously. The nation's largest technology interests are lobbying for New York Governor Kathy Hochul not to sign the bill. And, so far, Hochul has held the bill aside until Dec. 16, when a thirty-day clock began ticking, and if the governor takes no action by then the bill fails to become law. For several months her press flacks will only say, "Governor Hochul is reviewing the legislation." Very few people anywhere are against the bill, which allows consumers to fix products they pay for. Advocates for the measure say many companies do not provide documentation or spare parts, or lock access behind software restrictions that thwart repairs outside companies' networks, limit consumer choice, raise ownership costs, and add to a growing e-waste stream. The Digital Fair Repair Act passed the state assembly 147–2 and the senate 59–4. Yet, despite all that popularity and bipartisan support, if Hochul sways to the lobbying interests of a handful of corporations, the bill fails and would have to start again from the beginning of the legislative process next term. Aggressive lobbying worked earlier in the process, as trade groups forced a slimmer version of the bill, taking out lawn equipment, gaming consoles, and appliances through a "burst of end-of-session lobbying from companies worth billions and their affiliated trade associations." The bill on Hochul's desk will now only apply to small electronics, according to the Times Union. But since the bill would be the first in the nation signed into law it would set a precedent for other states. Both ARS Technica and the Times Union report that state filings show that the trade group TechNet, and corporations Microsoft, Apple, Google, and HP, are all lobbying against the bill at the legislative and executive levels in New York. Read more about this story at ARS Technica.

Acra, NY—Wave Farm announced today twelve grantees for the Fall 2022 round of the MAAF Forward Fund for Organizations, a regrant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts. MAAF Forward Fund grantees: Allied Productions, American Documentary, Aubin Pictures, Blank Forms, CultureHub, Film Forum, Franklin Furnace Archive, La Kaje, Maker Park Radio, Stockade Works, The Center for the Holographic Arts, and The Picture House Regional Film Center.

The Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) supports electronic media and film organizations, as well as individual artists, in all regions of New York State. For organizations, MAAF Forward Fund provides funds to support technical strategies for online development as well as to hire outside consultants to support organizational and professional development. Eligible organizations have missions specific to the media arts, dedicate the majority of their programming to technology as an art form, and are current NYSCA grantees. Organizations are eligible to receive a maximum of $2,500. The biannual application deadlines for the MAAF Forward Fund are May 1 and October 1.

Information about the twelve 2022 Fall MAAF for Organizations funded projects is available below.

GRANTEES AND PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

Allied Productions (New York County) - Implementation of Live-Streaming Technology for Allied Production Events in 2023
Allied Productions will purchase the remaining audio and video equipment needed to complete a comprehensive live-streaming station that will be used to broadcast live performances, panels, and other in-person events. This live-streaming station will be used in 2023 for presentations of over 55 interdisciplinary events including outdoor film screenings, live and virtual music performances, multimedia installations, and gatherings that seek to engage local arts communities within Lower Manhattan and the greater NYC metropolitan area.

American Documentary (Kings County) - Increased Organizational Capacity in 2023
American Documentary (AmDoc) will hire an HR consultant to support their internal team in providing direct services, training, and coaching on a range of human resources and employee relations such as staff onboarding, senior team consulting, preparation for performance reviews, reference checks, and exit interviews.

Aubin Pictures (New York County) - Website Upgrades
Aubin Pictures will use MAAF funding to support an updated infrastructure for their website. They will work with a consultant who will advise Aubin Pictures on UI and UX throughout the organization’s website, with a focus on better showcasing each film project to engage audiences to learn more about the independent filmmakers and grassroots organizations that Aubin Pictures collaborates with. Aubin Pictures will also complete an accessibility audit to improve accessibility features throughout the site.

Blank Forms (Kings County) - Web Architecture Consultation for an Entangled View of Time-Based Art Practices
Blank Forms will work with a consultant to advance the second phase of a web development project that will evolve their website into a broader resource for artists and audiences. This project will allow Blank Forms to more fully engage the multifaceted practices of the artists they serve while drawing out the critical interconnection of their programs across commissions, performances, exhibitions, publications, archival and legacy initiatives.

CultureHub (New York County) - Experiments in Digital Storytelling
CultureHub will work with a developer in support of LiveLab+, CultureHub’s open-source media router for collaborative performance. The organization aims to streamline the LiveLab+ code base to make it easier for other artists and organizations to customize the open-source platform. The consultant will work with CultureHub’s in-house technical team to strengthen and diversify the skillset of the organization’s staff.

Film Forum (New York County) - Capacity Interactive Boot Camp 2022
MAAF funds will support staff Professional Development through the boot camp hosted by digital marketing and consulting firm Capacity Interactive. Film Forum aims to gain the tools and resources to keep up to date with digital marketing through workshops including: the obsolescence of third-party cookies; developing a first-party data strategy; creating a social media audience through user-generated content; and leveraging existing patron data to optimize campaign performance with new Google tools.

Franklin Furnace Archive (Kings County) - Digital Accessibility
Franklin Furnace Archive (FF) will use MAAF funds to support technical assistance to upgrade their website and publicly released images with Alt Text. FF aims to refine its accessibility strategies by establishing protocol for Alt Text use, ultimately increasing accessibility to their website and accompanying digital platform for media performances, the FF Loft. FF will produce an in-house How To Deploy Alt Text guide/manual, with a working template and assessment rubric.

La Kaje (Kings County) - Guidance Around Organizational Strategy and Sustainability
La Kaje will engage a non-profit consultant to help evaluate their current management and governing structures, administrative systems, and business model. As an emerging organization, La Kaje aims to design a 12-18 month strategic plan for organizational development and advancement.

Maker Park Radio, Inc. (Richmond County) - Developing Online Access
Maker Park Radio will engage a web developer to better design closed captioning for the audio player on their website and app. Maker Park Radio aims to increase accessibility to their website and app with better navigation features, increased text visibility, and more responsive playlist and schedule loading.

Stockade Works (Ulster County) - Stockade Works Professional Development: Communications
MAAF funds will enable Stockade Works to hire a communications consultant to support organizational growth and professional development of its staff. The consulting firm will lead Stockade Works staff in digital communications workshops and provide staff with training to build their audiences, provide greater access to programs, and foster inclusion.

The Center for Holographic Arts (Ulster County) - Strategic Planning Assistance for the HoloCenter Programs
The Center for Holographic Arts (The HoloCenter) will work with a development consultant to research and identify major development opportunities to support the building of the organization’s studio space for the holographic arts and their online Virtual Museum of Holography. The consultant will help create the HoloCenter’s plan for funding projects that include capital and capacity building, education, programming, general operations, and exhibitions.

The Picture House Regional Film Center (Westchester County) - Major Gifts Strategy Development with Coaching for Board and Staff
The Picture House Regional Film Center will work with a development consultant to create a major gifts strategy and train their Board of Directors and staff in best practices. The Picture House aims to build donor relationships and multi-year sustainable gifts as the backbone of their fundraising portfolio.

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The New York State Council on the Arts is dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York’s citizens. The Council believes in artistic excellence and the creative freedom of artists without censure, and the rights of all New Yorkers to access and experience the power of the arts and culture, and the vital contribution the arts make to the quality of life in New York communities. http://arts.ny.gov

Wave Farm is a non-profit arts organization driven by experimentation with broadcast media and the airwaves. A pioneer of the Transmission Arts genre, Wave Farm programs provide access to transmission technologies and support artists and organizations that engage with media as an art form. Major activities include Artist Residencies and Fellowships; a Public Transmission Art Park; Wave Farm Radio, including WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears, a creative community radio station based in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley; a Fiscal Sponsorship program; and Regrant Partnerships with the New York Council on the Arts. https://wavefarm.org

MAAF Forward Fund is a Regrant Partnership of NYSCA and Wave Farm, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. For more information about the The New York State Council on the Arts in Partnership with Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) visit https://wavefarm.org/grants/about.

Acra, NY—Wave Farm announced today seventeen grantees for the 2022 Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) for Artists, a regrant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts. MAAF Grantees: Mike Crane, Ar Ducao, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, Lucy Helton and Jason Geistweidt, Walter Hergt, Angeline Marie Michael Meitzler, Joseph Morris and Owen Trueblood, Paul A. Notice II, Anna Oxygen and Fawn Krieger, Emily Packer, Jingyao Shao, Sarah G. Sharp, Lucie Vítková and Merche Blasco, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Nia O. Witherspoon, Tansy Xiao, and Caveh Zahedi.

The Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) supports electronic media and film organizations, as well as individual artists, in all regions of New York State. For individual artists, MAAF provides support for the completion and/or public presentation of new works in all genres of sound and moving image art, including emergent technology. Grant awards assist artists in completing new work, reaching public audiences, and advance artistic exploration and public engagement in the media arts.

Grantees are selected through a competitive panel process. The deadline for the 2023 Media Arts Assistance Fund for Artists opportunity is January 15, 2023. Detailed information about the seventeen 2022 MAAF for Artists funded projects is available below.

GRANTEES AND PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

Mike Crane - Recording Mary (working title) (Kings County)
In Recording Mary (working title), the filmmaker calls upon his father to help him track down a childhood audio recording that he made of the voice of the Virgin Mary. The two resort to a game of broken telephone in their attempt to locate the long lost artifact, unearthing strange new memories of spiritual fortitude and cosmic instability. MAAF funding will support the necessary tools for completion and distribution, including 5.1 surround sound mix, color grading, and DCP authoring.

Ar Ducao - The Great Tit is a Bird (Kings County)
The Great Tit is a Bird is a sci-fi narrative project about Black and Brown feminine and trans-feminine people around the world, the losses they survive, and the ways they shape our high-tech era even as they are pushed to the margins. This transfeminine story explores issues its creators have witnessed firsthand, including techno-colonization, research misconduct, gender-based violence, and threats to body autonomy. A limited series, The Great Tit is a Bird  is a mosaic of “found footage:” voice memos, commercials, voicemails, radio shows, and phone calls. MAAF Funding will support the preparation of final cuts, 3D animation highlights, and distribution to people in the same demographic as the show’s main characters: BIPOC feminine and transfeminine folks, particularly youth interested in STEAM (science, tech, engineering, art, math), struggling with systemic oppression, and/or reckoning with inter-generational, post-colonial trauma. 

Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby - The Infernal Grove (Onondaga County)
The Infernal Grove is an interdisciplinary, multimedia art project that challenges current definitions of drugs, crime, addiction, and recovery. It amplifies the message of harm reductionists, who advocate for a safe, clean drug supply and safe drug-user-led spaces in which to take them. The project provides an unconditional forum for dialogue among people with lived experience of drug use, including those dealing with legal outcomes of drug prohibition. MAAF funding will support the post-production of the experimental documentary at the heart of the work and prototyping for an immersive video installation. 

Lucy Helton and Jason Geistweidt – QSL (Kings County and Erie County)
Building on current radio-art and telematic-media practices, QSL utilizes automated photography, analog-data transmission protocols and radio-marine faxes to look at localized climate conditions. Seasonal and site-specific, the installation will conduct a time-based performance that oscillates between live and archival images of ice formations to discuss our planet’s past, present, and future. Remote cameras with small single-board computers will be pointedly staged in Buffalo’s Main Light on the shore of Lake Erie, to capture, encode, and transmit environmental data driven by lake-effect process. Shifts in the frozen landscape will be imaged and converted to a slow-scan analog signal (WeFax) to materialize as panoramic images printed by a mechanical installation of radio-faxes. This backup environmental technology–designed to receive news, meteorological reports, and emergency communications at sea–are like most analogue fax machines and print out information onto a roll of thermal paper. MAAF support will facilitate installation in gallery settings in both Buffalo and Manhattan, NY, where audience participation will be explored through the assembly of the received thermal prints to make wall objects and other ephemera.

Walter Hergt - Convergence (Dutchess County)
Convergence is an experimental multimedia documentary project incorporating archival film, oral history interviews, collected sound, and written documents. Drawing from the artist’s family archive, it uses multimedia layering and dissonance to challenge viewers to step into the tension that resides where memory and history overlay, creating a discordant atmosphere that troubles the viewer’s cultural impulses of nostalgia and historical idealization. MAAF funding will support the completion of the experimental film and the development of its accompanying public exhibition installation.

Angeline Marie Michael Meitzler - The Roaring of the Carabao (Kings County)
The Roaring of the Carabao considers the unresolved histories and inherited emotions of imperialistic oppression through the imagined embodiment of the Taal volcano. Located in the Philippine’s province of Batangas, 30 miles south of Manila, the Taal volcano is among one of the most active volcanoes in the country. Utilizing aspects of hauntology, this work engages with the volcano’s ongoing turbulence as a spectre of the production of Filipino Americanism; silenced imaginaries never properly mourned for and visions of a future that were promised but never arrived. In a series of renderings, this film features the research and experimentation of recreating a 3D model of the Taal Volcano, a method of considering the volcano’s activity itself as a process of relentless remembering. The work ultimately results in a CGI animation that narrates a story of a night of the volcano’s eruption, intergenerational anger and a desire for heat. MAAF funding will support sound engineering and post-production editing.

Joseph Morris and Owen Trueblood - Anchorage, Babel in Reverse (Kings County)
Anchorage, Babel in Reverse is a site-specific installation by artists Joseph Morris and Owen Trueblood in collaboration with the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA) that features the voices of hundreds of speakers of endangered languages spoken throughout the city of New York. Using hanging electronic speakers, the artists will dedicate each speaker to a single audio recording of a language documented by the ELA. As people approach the installation, the sound is a whispering babel, with hundreds of recorded voices speaking hundreds of languages. However, as one walks beneath the speakers, the babel fades, and individual voices and languages are heard. As participants move through the installation, speakers sense their location, fading in and out to only play the audio of the speaker they stand beneath, allowing them to hear the voices of New Yorkers reciting stories, poems, and fables of languages we’re accustomed to hearing as well as the hundreds of voices that NYC is expected to lose in a generation or two. MAAF funding will support the labor and equipment costs of installing this site-specific work under the archway of the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn.

Paul A. Notice II - Willow (Queens County)
After “Peer Consumption” is legalized in this world, their utopian governance and ideals like universal healthcare, universal education, universal employment, and a Ban on Police are overshadowed by a predatory housing market paired with vampiric cannibalism. Desperate to pay rent, or risk being eaten alive, Willow, a brooding elected observer of alt worlds and timelines - better known as a Griot - navigates her way to Power. In World #336, a successful 1811 German Coast Slave Revolt leads to a multi-ethnic near-utopia, outlawing White Supremacy and most systemic instruments it uses. However, in this reality, consuming others grants one electrical power, regenerative healing, and the memories of their victim–a metaphor that viscerally reveals capitalism’s inherent violence, and toxic allure. Though a standalone short film, Willow, also lays the groundwork for an Afrofuturist TV series that wields the non-linear nature of time and alt world travel as a vehicle to examine the ways in which sociopolitical events of the past impact the present and future. With MAAF support, Willow will begin screening with panel discussions in New York and film festivals in October 2022, culminating in online distribution in August 2023. 

Anna Oxygen (Anna Huff) and Fawn Krieger - How We Touch the Light (Tompkins County and Queens County) 
Under the collaborative moniker "Volumes" artists Anna Oxygen (aka Anna Huff) and Fawn Krieger work across media, sculpture, sound, and time. In How We Touch the Light, scanned sculptures placed in the UNITY game engine, become protagonists and active collaborators in a live and simultaneously mediated/broadcast musical performance. The piece narratively addresses virtual placemaking, speculative future building, scale, rupture, and labor and explores the potential of volumetric capture and 3D scanning as a way to generate media assets for a new kind of liveness and meaning making. MAAF funding will support the scanning of two remaining sculptures as environments, costume and soft sculpture creation, and the finalizing of the live performance.

Emily Packer - Holding Back the Tide (Queens County)
Holding Back the Tide is a feature length hybrid experimental documentary about oysters as queer environmental heroes in New York City. This city symphony of urban and aquatic landscapes follows the precarious ebb and flow of the oyster across their life cycles. Along the way, viewers meet an ensemble of farmers, chefs, scientists, and environmental activists, all connected by their role in closing the ecological loop on oyster consumption. Scripted interludes inspired by oysters’ genderfluid reproductive biology conjure the Greek figures of Aphrodite, born of a mollusk shell, and Hermaphroditus, as they traverse the city and the waterways in search of a queer and environmentally sustainable way of being. MAAF funding will support post-production including color correction and immersive sound design by artist Kaija Siirala.

Jingyao Shao - The kite knows where I go (Kings County)
The kite knows where I go is a media installation exploration to trace the sensation and perception of awe through flying a kite. Shao adapted a traditional kite with lighting elements and a solar-powered spool. A microcontroller embedded within the spool transforms the tension of pulling the kite string into sound, audible through connected headphones. MAAF support will enable the completion stage of the project including documentation.

Sarah G. Sharp - Women Looking (Kings county)
Women Looking is a multimedia project that explores archival material found in underground feminist press from the early 1970’s through textiles, domestic decor, and Augmented Reality (AR). When specific wallpaper and fabric patterns are viewed through the Women Looking AR App, layers of related archival and contemporary media are activated, producing concrete and poetic associations between social issues, movements, and community building technologies of the past, present, and future. By imprinting these radical images onto traditionally domestic forms like quilting, embroidery, and wallpaper, the home is evoked as a potential site of revolution, community building, and imagination. MAAF funding will be used to develop and publish the final version of the Women Looking AR App. 

Lucie Vítková and Merche Blasco - Blasco/ Vítková/ Anette (Kings County)
In the album Blasco/ Vítková/ Anette, Lucie Vítková and Merche Blasco explore cyborg-ness through their relationships with their instruments. Vítková perceives the accordion as an extension of their body, where sound and movement are locked into a self-generating cybernetic loop. Blasco built Anette, a 3D printer, as her latest interlocutor and companion in the performance space. Anette’s electromagnetic voice is amplified in an octophonic system through custom-built antenna/thimbles that Blasco wears on her fingers. The eight signals broadcast from the thimble-microphones in studio and in performance were later mixed down to stereo, preserving the spatial image created in the live set. The 3-way performance with Vítková, Blasco, and Anette becomes an inter-material conversation between all the human and nonhuman elements that participate in this cyborgian system. MAAF funding will support the release of a double CD through experimental music label XI Records during the Fall/Winter of 2022.

James N. Kienitz Wilkins - Still Film (Queens County)
Still Film is an experimental feature that puts “cinematic memory” on defense and trial, taking the form of a fictionalized witness deposition. The project is conceived as a capstone to an unofficial trilogy of movies using voiceover performance and photography to explore how the appeal of movies may be the promise of something never delivered. MAAF funding will support the movie’s post-production.

Nia O. Witherspoon - Bring Back the Moon (Kings County)
Bring Back the Moon is a visual album associated with Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Temple, a constellation of experiences, engagements, and ceremonial happenings that center Black femme pleasure, bodily autonomy, and spiritual evolution. Featuring three songs from the larger album, entitled Goddexx Fly Trap (+ Bad B*** Mantras), and inspired by African goddesses like Isis, Oshun, and Yemonja, the film short is a collaboration with cinematographer Imani Dennison and is a fantastical re-telling of how a Black/mixed-race girl’s hair journey turns into a portal for healing. When her white mother is unable to manage her hair, they end up at a Black hair salon, where the little girl is not only embraced and affirmed, but gains access to a quantum realm where she is able to cross dimensions. MAAF funding will support the film’s release locally in the fall of 2022, as well as submissions to festivals throughout the year. 

Tansy Xiao - The Linguistic Errantry (Kings County)
The Linguistic Errantry is a stochastic sound environment and social experiment in a virtual setting. Viewers are invited to operate a first-person character with a game controller. 14 giraffes are set to randomly roam a surreal land full of symbolistic landscape and omnipresent surveillance cameras. Each giraffe is set to sing a measure constituting 2-4 notes and nonlinguistic lyrics deconstructed from L'Internationale. When two giraffes collide, they adopt each other’s measure to add to their own array. The piece reimagines the Tower of Babel in a way that manifests the arbitrary nature of history: the consolidation and disintegration of sovereigns, an anticipated revolution to be generated by mere chance, or a parallel universe where nothing ever happens and only entropy reigns supreme. Contingency here serves as a passive approach of resistance, with a silver lining that in theory, like the infinite monkey theorem, the giraffes could sing complete lines of L'Internationale if given an infinite amount of time. MAAF funding will support the equipment for public exhibitions and compensation for vocalists and technicians assisting in the completion of the project.

Caveh Zahedi - Post-Coital Tristesse (Kings County)
Soon after the worldwide pandemic lockdown, an American filmmaker living in New York and a French performance artist living in Berlin meet and fall in love online. Because of travel restrictions in Germany and the U.S., they decide to meet in person in London for two weeks and shoot a film about their encounter. MAAF funding will support the final post-production activities necessary for completion of Post-Coital Tristesse.

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The New York State Council on the Arts is dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York’s citizens. The Council believes in artistic excellence and the creative freedom of artists without censure, and the rights of all New Yorkers to access and experience the power of the arts and culture, and the vital contribution the arts make to the quality of life in New York communities. http://arts.ny.gov

Wave Farm is a non-profit arts organization driven by experimentation with broadcast media and the airwaves. A pioneer of the Transmission Arts genre, Wave Farm programs provide access to transmission technologies and support artists and organizations that engage with media as an art form. Major activities include Artist Residencies and Fellowships; a Public Transmission Art Park; Wave Farm Radio, including WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears, a creative community radio station based in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley; a Fiscal Sponsorship program; and Regrant Partnerships with the New York Council on the Arts. https://wavefarm.org

For more information about the The New York State Council on the Arts in Partnership with Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund (MAAF) visit https://wavefarm.org/grants/maaf-artists.

An Associated Press reporter posted on Facebook on June 27, “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.” The post was taken down by Facebook within one minute, with the account given a “warning” status, as Facebook saying it violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods.” So the same reporter then posted on Facebook, “If you send me your address, I will mail you a gun.” This post was allowed to stay online. Then the reporter posted on Facebook, “If you send me your address, I will mail you weed.” That post also was allowed to remain online. Mailing abortion pills is legal. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says "A nonlicensee may not transfer a firearm to a non-licensed resident of another state. A nonlicensee may mail a shotgun or rifle to a resident of their own state or to a licensee in any state. Mailing cannabis across state lines violates federal law. Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, Facebook's parent company name, said in a Tweet June 27 that the company does not allow individuals to gift or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information on how to access pills. But, Stone said, mistakes have been made by Meta. “We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said in the Tweet. West Virginia and Tennessee are already prohibiting prescribing abortion pills through telemedicine consultation and the mail, even though Attorney General Merrick Garland said June 24 that, “states may not ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.” Mifepristone is a prescription abortion pill. The Supreme Court on June 24 allowed states to ban abortions.

Radio Ink reports that Florida Senator Marco Rubio was interviewed by Beasley Media Group Director of Latin Formats, Nio Fernandez at the Radio Ink Hispanic Radio Conference on June 23. Fernandez asked Rubio if he was in favor of the National Association of Broadcaster’s Local Radio Freedom Act and Rubio replied, “I think the Radio Freedom Act would impose new taxes and fees on an industry that’s already in a lot of trouble when it comes to revenue. We’re going to lose local news and information if we keep raising costs on operation. And this is just one more cost.” A typical politician's response, right? Well, Rubio's answer proves he has no idea what the Local Radio Freedom Act says. The proposal is a non-binding resolution the National Association of Broadcasters has been circulating in Congress for years which says that no new taxes should be imposed on local radio stations. Congress.gov has a one-sentence description of the proposal, House Congressional Resolution 33: "This concurrent resolution declares that Congress should not impose any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge relating to the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station for broadcasting sound recordings over the air, or on any business for such public performance of sound recordings." Rubio says he disagrees with the Local Radio Freedom Act that is against new taxes for radio stations, but in the same interview he said, “Local media outlets are already facing a tremendous amount of pressure and competition from the sheer volume of where people are getting their information from. The last thing I think local media needs is another tax or fee that increases the cost of operating. That business model just becomes cost ineffective.” Fortunately, Rubio is not on the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband, which regulates the FCC and radio issues.

Jon Brodkin reports at Ars Technica that after the Supreme Court let states do away with abortions last week, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sara Jacobs sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, asking to "investigate Apple and Google for engaging in unfair and deceptive practices by enabling the collection and sale of hundreds of millions of mobile phone users' personal data." After the Supreme Court ruling some are concerned that making a Google search for abortion, or using a period tracker app in states where abortion is outlawed will lead to legal consequences. "The FTC should investigate Apple and Google's role in transforming online advertising into an intense system of surveillance that incentivizes and facilitates the unrestrained collection and constant sale of Americans' personal data," the senators wrote. "These companies have failed to inform consumers of the privacy and security dangers involved in using those products. It is beyond time to bring an end to the privacy harms forced on consumers by these companies." The senators also wrote that women "seeking abortions and other reproductive healthcare will become particularly vulnerable to privacy harms, including through the collection and sharing of their location data." Clearly, information harvesting is part of almost any computer app in existence, even if some companies deny they sell that information. "Google never sells user data, and Google Play strictly prohibits the sale of user data by developers," the company said in a statement on June 24. But the senators letter, sent the same day, says they are concerned about how companies use the public radio waves to track the public. "Data brokers are already selling, licensing, and sharing the location information of people that visit abortion providers to anyone with a credit card. Prosecutors in states where abortion becomes illegal will soon be able to obtain warrants for location information about anyone who has visited an abortion provider. Private actors will also be incentivized by state bounty laws to hunt down women who have obtained or are seeking an abortion by accessing location information through shady data brokers," the letter said. The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out in a statement June 24 that even if companies do not sell the data they harvest, it could be used against women in court. "Everyone deserves to have strong controls over the collection and use of information they necessarily leave behind as they go about their normal activities, like using apps, search engine queries, posting on social media, texting friends, and so on," the EFF said. "But those seeking, offering, or facilitating abortion access must now assume that any data they provide online or offline could be sought by law enforcement." And a strongly-worded letter won't stop a court order. Read more about this story at Ars Technica.

Randy J. Stine reports for Radio World that the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio are among the group's opposed to the Federal Communications Commission allowing ZoneCasting. The new technology lets a radio station that covers a large area use FM boosters to geo-target some content in specific areas. So in New York, for instance, WAMC is a network of translator stations all broadcasting the same signal from the Canadian border to the outskirts of New York City. Under this new technology they could geotarget local news for, say, Newburgh or Kingston, while different local news plays in Albany. The National Association of Broadcasters, a trade group for the biggest corporate radio stations in the U.S., cites supposed "interference" the new technology would create for its opposition. National Public Radio claims the technology would threaten to cause widespread harm to the fidelity of the FM dial. Neither support those claims with many facts. More likely, both organizations want to ward off competition. In the past the NAB and NPR both opposed allowing community-run low-power FM stations on the air, because they did not want the competition. In that case, all the industry claims that new, small low-power stations would cause interference to big, corporate stations proved false. In this case, smaller broadcasters are in favor of ZoneCasting, as a way to better serve those listeners. But if smaller stations serve their listeners well, the NAB and NPR seem to believe it will come at the expense of larger stations. In 2009 a Federal Communications Commission report found that small, community radio stations do not impact the ratings or revenue of large commercial stations. "Our final conclusion is that the analysis finds no statistically reliable evidence that [low-power FM] stations have a consistent effect on the economic performance of full-service commercial FM stations," the report said.

Inside Radio reports that the latest wacky legislation from Florida goes into effect July 1. Drivers must lower the volume of any car device so that it is not heard at a distance beyond 25 feet. Florida House Bill 1435 was created to stop unsanctioned “pop-up” events organized on social media according to Republican sponsor Tom Leek, who said the events were “invasions” that shut down coastal communities. The new law says that a person “operating or occupying a motor vehicle on a street or highway may not operate or amplify the sound produced by a radio, tape player, compact disc player, portable music or video player, cellular telephone, tablet computer, laptop computer, stereo, television, musical instrument, or other mechanical or electronic sound making device or instrument, which sound emanates from the motor vehicle, so that the sound is: “(a) Plainly audible at a distance of 25 feet or more from the motor vehicle; or “(b) Louder than necessary for the convenient hearing by persons inside the vehicle in areas adjoining private residences, churches, schools, or hospitals.” How loud is a radio one can hear from 25 feet away? “I feel like they’re targeting people,” Jacksonville resident Dwohn Leonard said to News 4 Jacksonville. “When they say plainly audible, that’s basically an excuse to pull anyone over because if you have your windows down and your music up even half way, plainly audible would be even somebody on the street being able to hear your music.”