From Tony Canonico in Neural:

Jeff Feddersen, author of EarthSpeaker, is an artist with a well rounded background, mainly specialised on the dynamics (nowadays pretty blended) between music and informatics. His favourite subjects of research are nature and the technologies developed around energetic sustainability. EarthSpeaker is a set of outdoor installations (sculptures) which interact with and within the environment by grabbing solar energy during daytime and releasing sound emissions from sunset on. Feddersen's project is at free103point9's Wave Farm in Acra (New York), and the first prototype of EarthSpeaker was built in 2006 at Eyebeam Center labs. Thanks to his 'nocturnal audio sculptures,' he seems to put up a sort of robotic representation of life-environment interaction and its seemingly simple cybernetic cycle. Just like the vegetal system, EarthSpeaker absorbs solar power thanks to the built-in solar panels and releases amplified VLF (very low frequency) sounds coming from outer space lightening and human generated waves (i.e.: geophones) by its own integrated speakers. A complete input/output cycle exploits the invisible and infinitesimal capabilities of our environment, redefining at the same time its semiotic borders through new representations of life.

Call for papers: Why Live? Performance in the Age of Digital Reproduction. Downloads and file exchanges have altered the economics of music of consumption, but have they also rendered the concert hall obsolete? Or have the isolation of ear buds and the ephemerality of digital files actually served to highlight the social significance and sweaty substantiality of live performance? Or are we witnessing the birth of a new “live” virtually social but vitally sweat-free? For LMJ 18 we solicit writing on the significance or irrelevance of contemporary performance practice and its alternatives.
Deadline: 15 October 2007. Rough proposals and queries to Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief, at ncollins[at]artic.edu. More info: http://leonardo.info/.

From Matthew Lasar in Lasar's Letter on the FCC:

Everybody had something to tell the Federal Communications Commission about so-called "white space" or "unlicensed" devices last week, including Cox Communications and the "Open Mobile Video Coalition."

The chatter culminated in Friday's decision by the FCC to initiate a new round of tests of the machines: cognitive receivers that can tap into unused television frequencies, or "white space," and use them for broadband purposes: video, streaming audio, extended LANs or "community mesh networks."

"The Commission is committed to working with all parties to continue the process of investigating the potential performance capabilities of TV white space devices in an open and transparent manner," the agency announced on October 5. "To that end, the Laboratory will be conducting additional laboratory and field testing of prototype devices."

The prototypes come from Microsoft and Phillips, big boosters of the technology and leaders of the "White Space Coalition," which also includes Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel.

Their FCC filings promise that "unlicensed devices operating in the TV band will offer longer transmission ranges using the same power, less risk of signal attenuation or harmful interference, and less power consumption at the same range than Wi-Fi."

TV broadcasters, on the other hand, have roundly denounced the technology, likening it to a potential epidemic spread by signal interference laden "germs . . . with the ability to attack the TV receivers in people's homes, apartments, hotel rooms, hospital rooms, dormitories, etc."

On September 21 Microsoft and Phillips submitted the results of their latest unlicensed device tests to the FCC. Their tests confirm that it is feasible for white space devices to pick up TV signals at a signal strength "that is far too weak for a television set to produce a broadcast television picture," their filing concluded.

But the broadcasters aren't letting up on this issue. The Open Mobile Video Coalition's October 2nd comment urges the FCC to test unlicensed devices for interference with mobile receivers [eg, cell phones], and "not to permit unlicensed devices to operate in the DTV spectrum unless there is fully effective protection against interference to the mobile broadcast service from mobile devices."

The filing is signed by reps from Tribune, Cox Television, Telemundo, Media General, Gannett, and Fox, among other broadcasters.

Independent of this group, Cox submitted several statements to the FCC on the same day, arguing that the "state of these cognitive radio technologies - as demonstrated by the [FCC's] laboratory tests - is too immature to ensure protection of broadcast and cable services."

AV Festival 08 is providing creative practitioners with an opportunity to contribute ideas to the programme. In the next two months, we will announce a series of opportunities for artists, musicians, filmmakers, DJs, VJs, designers, theorists, technologists, scientists, philosophers and others to contribute to the festival.

The first of these are now online, and include the call for artists’ proposals for AV Festival 08 at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, a project Manager for Middlesbrough and also for young people to get involved with AV Festival 08 through the evolve volunteer and envoy scheme.

In the coming weeks, we will also call for proposals from artists and producers who want to get involved with our radio stations, filmmakers who want to create a new work for the festival, and critics and philosophers who want to contribute to our conferences.

Waygood Amateur Radio Club two-way radio communication

Artists, writers, performers, sound artists and musicians who are interested in working towards an amateur radio license and producing work for a new arts amateur radio club as part of AV Festival 08 are invited to contact Waygood Gallery & Studios for further information. Please send your contact details to helen@waygood.org by 31st October 2007.

Call for Artists’ Proposal for AV Festival 08 at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens

AV Festival 08 and Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens seek to commission a new site-specific audio artwork for the Sunderland Winter Gardens as part of AV Festival 08. Deadlines not specified on web site; festival is in March, 2008.

From Cory Doctorow in boingboing:

The FCC's war on dirty words is having a chilling effect -- even WBAI Pacifica, the radical radio station in NYC, is scared of airing Allen Ginsberg's magnificent poem, Howl.

"Why, 50 years later after a judge ruled that children could read this poem, people are afraid the courts will say that their ears shouldn't hear it," said Ron Collins, a constitutional law instructor and First Amendment advocate who is leading a small group of authors, broadcasters and free-speech advocates pushing to broadcast the poem eventually. "Yet they can go on the Internet and see far, far worse things."

Another irony: WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation station in New York that plans to post "Howl" online, is the same station that took on the FCC more than 30 years ago over the right to air George Carlin's comedy routine featuring the "seven dirty words." The challenge led to a 1978 Supreme Court decision governing what naughty words can be broadcast and when.

Pacifica's attorney for FCC issues, John Crigler, thinks airing "Howl" would be "a great test case" in the current environment. But he understands why WBAI won't broadcast "Howl," even between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the hours the FCC has cordoned off for rougher language.

WBAI program director Bernard White fears that the FCC will fine the station $325,000 for every one of Ginsberg's dirty-word bombs. If each Pacifica station that aired the poem - and possibly repeated it - were to be fined for airing "Howl," it could mean millions of dollars in fines.

Daniel Carter, Matt Mikas, Tony Flynn and Tom Roe at free103point9 Project Space, Brooklyn, 03.12.05:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J0TQB07-fA]

The new free103point9 web site is up now. We're sure there are still some kinks to be worked out, but there's also many new features that are working fine. Lots of new audio and video files of past events, made possible, in part, through a Digitization grant administered by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. You can also add your event to the calendar, to get listed among many other great radio art and experimental events from around the world. Please let us know if anything doesn't work in the comments.

free103point9 Online Radio
October 2007 Top 40

1. Mammal, Lonesome Drifter (Animal Disguise)
2. Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet, Inner Constellation (Nemu)
Bruce Eisenbeil + Jean Cook + Nate Wooley + Aaron Ali Shaikh + Tom Abbs + Nasheet Waits.
3. Temperatures, Ymir (Heat Retention) LP
4. Phantom Limb & Bison, Phantom Limb & Bison (Evolving Ear)
5. Timeless Pulse Quintet, Timeless Pulse Quintet (Mutable)
6. Shelf Life, Ductworks (Public Eyesore)
7. David S. Ware Quartet, Renunciation (Aum Fidelity)
8. The Kevin Frenette 4, Connections (Fuller Street Music)
Kevin Frenette + Andy McWain + Todd Keating + Tatsuya Nakatani.
9. Alabrecht Maurer Trio Works, movietalks (JazzHausMusik)
10. Beardtongue, untitled (self)
11. Chris Forsyth + Nate Wooley, The Duchess of Oysterville (Creative Sources Recordings)
12. William Parker + Hamid Drake, Summer Snow (Aum Fidelity)
13. Tripwire, Looking in My Ear (Creative Sources)
14. Willing, Brotherhood of the Backwards Handshake (Evolving Ear)
15. Phil Minton + Yagihashi Tsukasa + Sato Yukie + Higo Hiroshi, Nippara * Tokyo (Austin Record)
16. Vampire Hands, Virgin Dust American Life (Freedom From)
17. Cadaver In Drag, Raw Child (Animal Disguise)
18. Giraffe, Hear Here (self)
19. William Parker + Hamid Drake, First Communion/Piercing the Veil 2xCD (Aum Fidelity)
20. Ting Ting Jahe, 18(16) (Winds Measure Recordings)
21. Jeff Arnal + Dietcich Eichmann, LP (Broken Research)
22. Thick Wisps, Thick Wisps (self)
23. If Bwana, Radio Slaves (Monochrome Vision)
24. Felix Werder, Electronic Music (Pogus)
25. David Watson, Fingering an Idea (XI Records)
26. MV & EE with the Bummer Road, Green Blues (Ecstatic Peace)
27. Duane Pitre/Pilotram Ensemble, Organized Pitches Ocurring in Time (Important)
28. Destructo Swarmbots, Clear Light (Public Guilt)
29. Robert Ashley, Now Eleanor's Idea (Lovely Music)
30. Ironing, Pocket Almanac (Hymn)
31. Meri von KleimSmid, Have a Spinach Salad (Latibulum)
32. Annea Lockwood, Thousand Year Dreaming/Floating World (Pogus)
33. Harm Stryker, Harm Stryker 3" CDr (Public Guilt)
34. The Peeesseye, Mayhem in the Mansion (Evolving Ear)
35. Various artists, ...a tidal wave of air & a subtle shift in landmarks (Passive Consumer)
36. Joseph Nechvatal, Viral Symph0ny (iea)
With Matthew Underwood, Andrew Deutsch, and Stephane Sikora.
37. Jonas Braasch, Global Reflections (Deep Listening)
38. Seejayno, Sedainty (Shinkoyo/Here See/Skulls of Heaven/BOC Sound Laboratories)
39. Albrecht Maurer + Norbert Rodenkirchen, Hidden Fresco (Nemu)
40. Eliane Radigue, Jetsun Mila (Lovely Music)

To submit CDs, LPs, CSs, etc. for consideration of airplay on free103point9 Online Radio, mail to:
free103point9
5622 Route 23
Acra, NY 12405

From William Hanley in Rhizome:

Former Whitney Museum of American Art Curator and current dean of the California College of the Arts, Lawrence Rinder has organized a small, three-artist show of television-influenced video work at San Francisco’s Silverman Gallery. Taking the narrative conceits of the medium as a common thread, TV Honey connects work from two generations of artists by playing up their similar engagements with the desiring mechanics of viewing. A wonderfully bizarre and infrequently screened 1974 work by Lynda Benglis, ‘The Amazing Bow Wow,’ tells the story of a human-size hermaphroditic dog, who becomes the main attraction in both a traveling freak show and ultimately a violent Oedipal romance. The “can’t look away” factor in her work is complemented by Joan Jonas’s ‘Vertical Roll.’ Made in 1972, the artist plays two self-consciously alluring characters in a video that persistently short-circuits the viewer’s engagement with the TV drama as the video frame continually “rolls” vertically off the screen in visual hiccups that recall an ancient television set with the v-hold knob turned slightly. Representing the contemporary progeny of these foundational television-focused video works, the show also features Oakland artist Desiree Holman’s 2006-07 video ‘The Magic Window.’ The three-channel projection–exhibited here with a group of related drawings–emulates the sitcom trope of a family watching television together, but like Jonas’ work in which the artifice disrupts the viewer’s typical relationship to the narrative, the familiarity of the scene is interrupted by strange masks worn by the characters. Opening October 11th, the most striking similarity to emerge between the decade-crossing works, however, may be the shared sense of D.I.Y. chaos that runs through each of them–all three contain dance sequences that could prove to be particularly hilarious viewed side by side.

From Marcus Estes via WFMU Beware of the Blog:

A community of computer geeks representing the forces of good (you know the type: politically liberal, swift to anger over unjust copyright laws, likely bearded, into Linux, bikes, beer) are working on a new project that could change the way that we use of one of the fundamental forces of nature: radio waves! Open source radio? What a great idea, right? But what is it?

Well, that's a long, slightly complicated story. The leading software project in the open source radio world is called GNU Radio. GNU refers to a software movement started in the '70s by a proto-hippie-geek by the name of Richard Stallman. Stallman was the first software developer to publicly espouse the "free love" approach to software copyrights that lead to such modern marvels as Linux. (The computer hosting this webpage runs Linux, and Linux will be bringing you almost every other webpage you visit today. Thanks, free software!)

GNU Radio operates under a similar philosophy as Linux -- let's all build it together and give it away to anyone who wants to use it. If you want to add to it, cool, but here's the trick: you have to give it away free as well. This has proved incredibly disruptive to a lot of powerful, evil corporations who would like to make sure that everyone has to pay for the ability to use a computer. First the free software movement brought us a computer operating system. As its next trick it built much of the infrastructure that powers today's internet.

Now they're working on radio. And we're not just talking AM/FM. These little open source radios can work with all radio, including TV, cell phone transmissions, and even microwaves. I guess. That's the thing, it's all a little mysterious at this point, to the uninitiated.

In a article for Wired magazine on this project, one of the inventors began by showing off what one these little puppies can do.

"Here," he explains, "I'm grabbing FM."

"All of it?" I ask.

"All of it," he says.

So there's one answer: Coupled with a proper radio antenna and receiver, you could listen to every radio station on the planet. At the same time. Why, you ask? Let's not worry about whys just yet. These fellas are working on more of a, "if it's possible, let's do it," sort of philosophy.

The original inspiration for the project was political. Congress has for years threatened to pass a law called the broadcast flag that would prevent anyone from making hardware that could record digital television shows. Because these software-powered radios can also work as TV tuners, software developers are working to make sure than giant electronics corporations are not the only ones in control of the technology. Beyond TV and radio, people have been using this work to do all sorts of wacky things, like hacking together super-local GPS systems and more.

If the notion of "turning the digital modulation schemes used in high performance wireless devices into software problems" seems confusing to you, there's probably not much fun to be had with an open source radio device just yet. You'll have to wait until somebody creates something more easy to use. (Or if you're into radio tech, C++ and / or Python coding, visit Ettus, a vendor that sells "Universal Software Radio Peripherals.") But with technology that's playfully rewriting the rules for such a fundamental natural phenomenon as radio waves, it's bound to give birth to some really interesting toys sooner or later. As one of the inventors said, "We're bringing the free-software ethic to radio, who knows what's going to come out of it?"

From Broadcast Law Blog:

During a panel at the NAB Radio Show, FCC Audio Services Division Chief Peter Doyle was asked a question about the processing of FM applications filed under the new simplified process for upgrades in their technical facilities and for changes in their cities of license (see our post here for details about that process). The question dealt with rumors that the processing of certain FM applications were being delayed if the proposed upgrade would cause interference problems to any LPFM stations which would threaten their existence. We have written about our concerns that such a policy was possible, here. According to the response yesterday, these delays are indeed taking place - meaning that LPFM stations that are supposed to be secondary services which yield to new or improved full-service stations are now blocking improvements in the facilities of these full-power stations.

Doyle explained that, at the moment, there is no policy of denying the full-service station's application - but these applications are being put on hold if they would impede an LPFM's ability to continue to operate in order to study options as to how the LPFM service might be preserved through a technical change or through agreements to accept interference. While no final determination has been reached as to what will happen to the applications if there is no available resolution to the LPFM interference issue, he pointed to the pending rulemaking (pending for almost two years) that would give LPFM's higher status, and in effect allow them to preclude new or improved full-service operations. There was some indication that these actions were being taken pursuant to the potential policies set out in that Notice of Proposed Rulemaking - even though these policies were simply proposals advanced for public comment and have not yet been adopted by the full Commission.

This seems to be a troubling case of the Commission adopting rules and policies before formal rulemaking proceedings are completed. In some cases, ad hoc policy changes may benefit broadcasters, but in cases like this, they may harm them and effectively impede the full implementation of a Commission decision that was long in the making. And this change is in a policy that was fundamental when the FCC first authorized LPFM - that low power FM stations that serve limited areas, and which have great potential for preclusive effects on large stations serving much larger populations, would be secondary to the greater service provided by the full-power stations. While the Commission can always change that policy, it would seem that they should do so in a reasoned rulemaking process, analyzing all of the pros and cons in the change in policy, through a resolution of a rulemaking proceeding like that which they started two years ago. Obviously, we have to see how the application process plays out (and it indeed may just be an attempt to help the LPFM stations in a benign fashion that will not affect the upgrades of the full service stations) but if these processing policies do indeed result in denial or permanent limbo for some full-service station applications, this certainly would look like the prejudgment of an important issue without an analysis of all of the legitimately-raised counterarguments that have been submitted to the Commission in its rulemaking proceeding.

"Bonding Energy" is part of Cross Current Resonance Transducer, a collaboration between Douglas Repetto and free103point9 transmission artist LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus). The project is based on the discovery of pulsars. In 1967, while working on a radio telescope in Cambridge, Jocelyn Bell Burnell detected unusual pulses through the telescope. Burnell and her colleagues did not believe that these strange pulses were naturally occurring signals, and began referring to them as LGMs (Little Green Men), suggesting that the signals were indicative of extraterrestrial intelligence. Eventually, the source of the pulses was determined to be a rapidly spinning neutron star that sends out regular bursts of radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation. Such stars are now called pulsars.

From CCRT, about "Bonding Energy":

Cross Current Resonance Transducer is an open-ended collaboration and research project. We are interested in the processes of interpretation and evaluation that are inherent in human attempts to understand natural phenomena. Inspired by the story of the pulsar's discovery, we develop systems for monitoring, manipulating, and interpreting natural signals such as electromagnetic radiation, tidal patterns, ambient temperature gradients, wind, and barometric pressure modulations. Our interest is not so much in presenting the phenomena themselves, but rather in exploring the often flawed but revealing interpretations of those phenomena that ultimately lead to greater human understanding and scientific progress. Our investigation has expanded from an initial focus, which emphasized using standard environmental sensors, to an interest in building our own environmental monitoring devices.

Our current CCRT project, "Bonding Energy," is focused on electromagnetic radiation (solar energy). It reflects our growing interest in not only collecting and analysing environmental data, but also in using the signals we investigate as potential renewable energy sources. As a model of a system for distributed microenergy generation, it is inspired by distributed computing applications such as SETI@home and by ideas associated with microcredit loans.

"Bonding Energy" consists of a set of "Sunsmile" devices that measure solar energy from seven sites around New York State. In keeping with our general CCRT working method, the physical form of the devices was determined by our interpretion of a previous generation of solar data manually collected in our studios each day during January 2007. The 31 data points were used to cut acrylic rings for the bodies and to create molds for the cast plastic bases. Each Sunsmile also has a printed circuit board inside and a small solar panel sitting on top.

Every ten minutes each Sunsmile device takes a reading from its solar panel and sends the data to a database on the turbulence.org server. When a viewer loads the Bonding Energy application they are presented with a live visualization of the data collected from the seven devices. Each device is represented by a wedge in an animated circle. The colors in the wedges change as the data from the previous three days is played back. Highlighted bands call out high and low data values, and a rotating line of text displays the data and time of the data being displayed in the center of the circle at each moment. Shapes overlaid on the animation represent changing data relationships between and withing the Sunsmile devices.

"Bonding Energy" was developed at in an AIRtime residency at free103point9 Wave Farm along with studios at the Columbia University Computer Music Center and the Eyebeam R & D Open Lab. It is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. A Sunsmile is currently in operation at free103point9's Wave Farm (pictured above), as well as at other New York locations including Columbia University, Redhouse Art Center, Colgate University, SUNY Buffalo, RPI's iEar studio, and Experimental Television Center. Repetto and LoVid will have a transcontinental web streaming performance from free103point9's Brooklyn location Oct. 19, with audio and video on free103point9 Online Radio.

From serial consign:

"White Line Light" is an installation by Carsten Nicolai and Olaf Bender, two of the musicians behind the Raster-Noton imprint. It was presented recently in Toronto by Yatra Arts and the Goethe-Institut Toronto. "White Line Light" explores fluorescent lighting as a means of reading sound and space. The brightness of the slender lighting rig modulates in sync with accompanying equally sparse audio. The official release for the installation describes it as follows: "The sound and light work of Carsten Nicolai and Olaf Bender explores the limitations of what we can see and hear. Taking this as a point of departure, white line light uses electricity as a conduit to identify, define and lend shape to the invisible and inaudible phenomena found in our midst, at the same time creating a palpable tension between the work itself and its unique architectural setting."

From Lasar's Letter on the FCC:

The Federal Communications Commission has extended to October 22 the window for public comments on its ten new media ownership studies. That's three weeks more for the public to respond to the surveys, which media reform groups charge have not received adequate peer review.

The proposal for an extension received strong opposition from the Media General company, which owns newspapers, radio, and TV stations in the southwest, and often calls for the relaxation of the FCC's media ownership rules.

"While we agree with Media General that undue delays in this proceeding should be avoided when possible, here we find that a brief extension of the filing deadlines is warranted," the FCC ruled today. "We believe that the public interest and our goal of assembling a full record in this proceeding would be best served by granting an extension of the comment and reply comment filing deadlines so that parties will have additional time to review the studies and underlying data."

For weeks, Freepress, the Consumers Union, and the Consumer Federation of America have argued that the studies, which survey media ownership patterns in the United States, run afoul of the Data Quality Act, because not enough of the information they used has been disclosed so that other scholars can duplicate the various reports' conclusions. "The Commission has not provided the sufficient data for enough time to perform such analyses," the three groups wrote earlier this month. "The public cannot evaluate these ten studies under the Commission’s rushed timeline."

The FCC released the studies with a 60-day comment cycle, which critics charged was an inadequate window for public comment. The public may now comment through the Oct. 22, and reply to comments through November 1.

From DIYMedia:

As the graph above shows, the agency's Enforcement Bureau is well on pace to meet or exceed last year's record-breaking enforcement action effort. Looking more closely at the data, one can see how FCC field agents are escalating the initial levels of the enforcement protocol much more quickly now (for example, the New York field office has cut the time between visit to warning letter down to as little as eight days).

Nevertheless, the FCC's not keeping such a good record when it comes to excersising actual muscle to shut pirate stations down: the number of Notices of Apparent Liability and actual forfeitures issued appears relatively unchanged from last year, and these actions remain but a small fraction of the Enforcement Bureau's overall enforcement effort. The number of raids/seizures conducted against pirate stations may edge up this year, but this is due to state-level enforcement efforts, most notably in Florida, where unlicensed broadcasting has been criminalized as a felony.

As far as what happens during the last three months of the year, it's anyone's guess: historically-speaking, there's a tertiary spike in enforcement actions against unlicensed radio stations in November, and it will be interesting to see whether this trend continues. Nevertheless, it's safe to say the agency's still a paper tiger, as unlicensed microbroadcast activity continues to blossom, especially in the nation's largest urban areas. However, recent developments, like the Enforcement Bureau's new online pirate complaint form and the possible installation of an anti-pirate attorney general, may change the game, but it's too early to tell by how much.

Leonardo Publications are inviting papers, special issue proposals and book proposals that deal with artistic approaches to weather, climate and their modifications. Western societies have progressively dissolved their ancestral link to climate, a link that was critical: the question for food. This is largely a result of massive urbanization and the development of the modern lifestyle. It has been possible to observe a deterioration of sensitivity to meteorology and climate.

Today, very few professions still reveal a direct relationship to climate; our intuitive understanding of it is thus weakened. Artifical indoor climates have given us a sort of second skin but also leveled our general experience of climate. Until recently, in consumer societies, the weather forecast has mainly been used for the organization of one's leisure, and "talking about the weather" has a social function. It is no surprise, then, that the science of meteorology is still believed to be one of the last "objective" sciences.

From a scientific point of view, climate (as well as weather) can be divided into series of meteorological parameters such as temperature, air pressure, humidity, wind force, etc. However, it seems impossible to conceive it as a totality except in subjectives terms. Weather and climate exist as such only for corporal and sensitive being and can be regarded phenomenolgically speaking, as a landscape.

Landscape does not exist in nature without the eye, which grasps an expanse of land as a landscape. Weather's and climate's existence are similar. The perception of weather and climate is the perception of an arrangement, a configuration of the real. Weather and climate are thus a multidimensional phenomenon in which are combined the contributions of nature, culture, history and geography, but also the imaginary and the symbolic.

Art could help us to question our perceptions and relationships to weather, climate and their changes. Artistic explorations should not be restricted to illustrating our scientific discoveries, as is done in contemporary climate-change showcases. Art could instead help us to experience and reveal our inner participation with weather and climate, the rupture of their balance and its meaning for our inner world, in the same way that landscape artists reframed the relationship of humans to their environment.

Leonardo seeks to document the works of artists, researchers, and scholars involved in the exploration of weather and climate (change), and is soliciting texts for Leonardo Journal and Leonardo Transactions, special issue proposals for the Leonardo Electronic Almanac and book proposals for Leonardo Book Series.

Sub-themes:

We are interested in a very broad array of artworks that encompass visual arts, sound art and music, performance and performing arts, etc, as well as in climate sciences, meterology and social sciences.

Following thematic sub-themes have been defined (but the call is not limited to them):

- Environments: weather and climate works enabling new experiences of environments;

- Meteorological and climate sciences: artworks questioning and linking to these sciences. What dialogue with air pollution meteorology, weather modification, climate sciences and climate history;

- Weather and climate technologies: artworks questioning and linking to these technologies as space based global monitoring satellites and their databases, as well as remote sensing technologies;

- Sustainability: artworks engaged in alternative energy ressources or climate memories for example;

- Social and political action: weather and climate works which may spur new thinking for action on environments;

- Weather and climate perceptions and/or narratives: poetical perceptions/narratives of weather and climate phenomena. What for ontological issues about transience and mutability may be engaged in such artworks? Artworks engaged in weather and climate fiction (real or imaginary weather/climate phenomena, climates and weather phenomena on other planets).

The "Lovely Weather" Editorial Group on Art & Climate includes: John Cunningham, Annick Bureaud, Ramon Guardans, Drew Hemment, Julien Knebusch, Roger Malina, Jacques Mandelbrojt, Andrea Polli and Janine Randerson. A moderated discussion on the topic, moderated by Janine Randerson, will begin this fall on the YASMIN network: http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin

Author instructions:
Leonardo Journal: http://leonardo.info/isast/journal/editorial/edguides.html, Roger Malina, Executive Editor
Leonardo Transactions: http://www.leonardo-transactions.com/, Ernest Edmonds, Editor-in-Chief
Leonardo Electronic Almanac: http://leoalmanac.org/cfp/calls.asp, Nisar Keshvani, Editor-in-Chief
Leonardo Book Series: http://leonardo.info/isast/leobooks/guidelines.html, Sean Cubitt, Editor-in-Chief
Art & Climate Leonardo project: http://www.olats.org/fcm/artclimat/artclimat_eng.php
General Inquiries should be sent to: leonardolovelyweather@gmail.com

From DIYMedia:

Recently, former federal judge Michael Mukasey was nominated to be the next Attorney General of the United States. There's lots of punditry going on within the mainstream media about his past legal leanings (surprise, they're reactionary!), but Mukasey's also been involved in microradio case law to a degree not experienced by any other contemporary Attorney General. It was back in 1998, when the [Lower East Side-based] Steal This Radio collective preemptively sued the Federal Communications Commission in hopes of stopping a station raid or other major, life-threatening enforcement action.

STR's lawsuit was not the most well-thought-out piece of legal argument. It took a shotgun approach to the FCC’s licensing authority: some claims alleged the Communications Act itself was unconstitutional because it gave the FCC excessive latitude to restrict access to the airwaves via the licensing mechanism; one claim specifically attacked the practice of auctioning off commercial radio licenses for limiting "free expression" only to those who can afford it. Another posited the radio spectrum as a public forum, which necessitated the strictest scrutiny of government attempts to regulate it; under such analysis, the broadcast licensing regime was overly restrictive and therefore also unconstitutional.

Then-judge Michael Mukasey, working the Southern District of New York, first used a "jurisdictional wiggle" to avoid addressing some of STR's more substantive allegations. After doing so, he savaged their claims. Steal This Radio’s open display of lawlessness [on 88.7-FM] coupled with the scarcity rationale were enough to doom their case. However, Mukasey’s ultimate reasoning disqualified them based on the preemptive nature of their lawsuit - they had no standing to seek redress for harm not yet suffered, irrespective of whether the rights in question exist.

Now, as (possible) Attorney General, Michael Mukasey will not be adjudicating such cases any more. But he will be in a position to change the entire federal prosecutorial stance on select "crimes," such as unlicensed broadcasting, so as to give the FCC more muscle with which to pursue pirates. For example, Mukasey could write a memorandum cordially requesting all United States Attorneys to be more cooperative to the FCC's pleas for enforcing its fines and/or pursuing injunctions or other criminal-prosecution tools.

After all, Mukasey has personal experience with the issue, and a stance on crimefighting in general which borders on jack-bootery. It's just another reason why he isn't an optimal choice for the job.

From Kim Andrew Elliott via AP:

"Several prominent show business personalities and celebrities of Myanmar also echoed their support of the protests via shortwave radio and called on the public to join the growing protest." AHN, 24 September 2007. "Two leading Burmese actors, comedian Zaganar and heart-throb movie star Kyaw Thu, came to Shwedagon yesterday to bring food and water to the monks, witnesses said. Both men had spoken on shortwave radio urging people to support the protests." AFP, 25 September 2007. "Win Min, a Myanmar analyst who teaches at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, said prominent Myanmar actors and celebrities had spoken on shortwave radio to throw their support behind the rallies and to urge the public to join." AFP, 24 September 2007. "From a warehouse-like building in Norway's capital, a tiny broadcast network called the Democratic Voice of Burma is struggling to provide news and encouragement to countrymen rising up against the military dictatorship at home." -- AP, 24 September 2007.

From Broadcast Law Blog:

Over a year ago, the FCC released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on amendments to the FCC's multiple ownership rules. Issues from newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership, to local TV and radio ownership limits are all being considered. Our summary of the issues raised in the NPRM is available here. The FCC has been holding field hearings throughout the country on its proposals, gathering public comment on the proposals - the most recent having been held in Chicago last night. Only one more field hearing to go and the Commission will have conducted the six hearings that it promised. Many, including me, had felt that the timing was such that no decision in this proceeding could be reached until 2008 and, as that is an election year, the decision could quite well be put off until after the election to avoid making it a political issue. However, there are now signs that some at the FCC are gearing up to try to reach a decision late this year or early next - presumably far enough away from the election for any controversy to quiet before the election. With this push, others are expressing concern about a rush to judgment on the issues, and may well seek to delay it further.

Evidence of the FCC's increasing attention to the multiple ownership issues include the recent Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asking questions about minority ownership and making proposals on how that ownership can be encouraged. The FCC has also asked for comment on several studies that it commissioned to look at the effects of ownership consolidation in the broadcast media. Comments on the Further Notice and the ownership studies are due on October 1, with replies due on October 15. Some have suggested that this time table is unnecessarily accelerated, especially as certain peer review documents on the ownership studies were just recently released.

At last night's Chicago field hearing, the two Democratic Commissioners expressed their concern about a rush to judgment. Commissioner Copps, in his remarks at the hearing, expressed concern over the short time frame given for comments on the issues raised by the Further Notice. Commissioner Adelstein suggested that the Commission appoint an independent panel of experts to review the ownership studies and report back to the FCC before any decision on the ownership rules is made.

At this week's Future of Music Policy Summit in Washington, DC, a legal assistant to Commissioner Adelstein expressed concern over this rush to reach a decision, suggesting that the Chairman wanted to see the decision out before his term ended, and was looking for a decision early next year. Several Congressional staffers on a panel about Capitol Hill activities that affect the music industry, as well as Senator Dorgan of North Dakota, all also expressed concerns about FCC action in this area, and indicated that both the House and the Senate intended to hold hearings on media consolidation this Fall, before any decision can be reached.

With battle lines being drawn, there are likely to be stormy times ahead in the multiple ownership debate. In 2003, with a Republican-controlled Congress, there were a number of bipartisan Congressional attempts to roll back the FCC's relaxation of the ownership rules before the Third Circuit Court or Appeals blocked most of those reforms. With a Democratic Congress, who knows what would come of any FCC relaxation of those rules in the coming months. But we may well see that issue play out - and perhaps become a political football in the upcoming elections.

XM channel 130 will be commercial-free, non-subscription channel from now until election day next year. Anyone with an XM radio, whether activated or not, will be able to receive it. XM radios can be bought on sale for $30 or less.