From DIYmedia.net

Ever since Congress bowed to pressure from commercial and public broadcasters six years ago and severely gutted the low-power FM radio service, its advocates have been working the Hill looking for a way to nullify the intervention. Several tries at passing bills to directly reverse the damage died quietly, which has directed attention toward using the amendment process as a vehicle for progress.

The "Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act" only became law because it was attached to a spending measure. This maneuver is one of the most sneakily abused ways of routing corrupt legislation through the system. LPFM advocates, led by the Prometheus Radio Project, are at least working with an existing bill that specifically involves important communications regulation.

It is called the WARN Act, and its primary goal is to effectively expand the use of the Emergency Alert System to media outlets other than broadcast radio and television - this will eventually include cell phones and other devices.

LPFM enhances the WARN Act by getting Congress to reaffirm its commitment to signal diversity - more stations means tighter coverage of the "National Alert System" network. LPFM stations proved their worth in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The relative inexpensiveness of LPFM stations, along with their heightened commitments to localism, make hitching an expansion of LPFM to the WARN Act a pretty powerful sell.

The bill's currently sitting in committee with just over a dozen co-sponsors. No word on how or when an LPFM expansion amendment might come into play, but those laying the groundwork are doing so with optimism.

From Media Network weblog

The London-based independent broadcasting station, SW Radio Africa, has reported the Zimbabwe government seems to have gone a notch higher in jamming its frequencies to the southern African country ahead of planned mass action by civic groups next week. Station manager, Gerry Jackson said that “Recently our mediumwave transmissions were jammed and we returned to shortwave - but after a few weeks this has also been jammed. It would appear that our news bulletin is being specifically targeted. This is clearly because a program of organised, peaceful resistance has begun in Zimbabwe and is also ahead of the advertised protests by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, scheduled to begin on 13th September.”

Ms Jackson forwarded to Media Network a copy of a reception report from Harare that describes the jamming:

“4880 is jammed from 8pm [1800 UTC] with a ‘new’ type of jammer. This jammer is extremely severe and takes the form of a siren/car horn sound.Cycles within 5 seconds and its the first time I’ve ever heard it. VOA has been jammed on MW 909 this evening within Harare and that jammer was still on that frequency when this one starts up, so it rules out that jammer. So there are two currently heard.

“At 8:30pm [1830 UTC] this jammer goes off and is replaced by the jammer that was on VOA MW’s 909, less effective but still there on 4880. It still wipes you out, it is a unmodulated signal jammer but effective. You will need confirming reports ASAP from around Zimbabwe on the level of jamming that this ‘new’ jammer is capable of. But I have the unhappy feeling that it is a reactivated SW Gweru one.”

The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) recently reported the government seemed to be jamming not only SW Radio Africa but also frequencies for the Voice of America’s Studio 7 programme to Zimbabwe. Equipment sourced from China is being used to stop the independent broadcasting stations from beaming back into Zimbabwe from their foreign bases in London, Washington and Madagascar in the case of Radio Voice of the People.

“If government’s threats to stifle what it considers to be illegal broadcasting have anything to do with this development, MMPZ is again obliged to condemn it as a cynical interference with the public’s constitutional right to freedom of expression and their right to access information without hindrance,” said the media monitoring organisation.

Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa emerged precisely because of ZBH’s illegal de facto monopoly of the airwaves and serve as vital alternative sources of credible news for information-starved Zimbabweans who have to endure the blatant propagandist output of the government-controlled national public broadcaster, said the MMPZ.

The MMPZ said the government should speed up the process of licensing local independent broadcasters instead of wasting resources investing in equipment to shut down alternative sources of information.

(Sources: Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, SW Radio Africa)

Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT recently removed the tower for their student run FM station. No notice was given to the students, as they simply returned to school with WQAQ off the air. According to a campus official the tower was removed "because it was an unsightly eyesore right in the center of campus." They are in danger of losing their license should they not replace the tower within the next year.

One could write Quinnipiac president John Lahey and encourage him to replace WQAQ's tower at:
Quinnipiac University
275 Mt. Carmel Ave.
Hamden, CT 06518

From Daily Wireless

Ubiquitous video surveillence is now available to everyone, says Defeating the Hacker. IP cameras plug straight into a corporate Ethernet network or broadband system, transmiting live video. Many have "PTZ", enabling them to be panned, tilted and zoomed remotely.

Using a search engine like Google, it's possible to locate hundreds of unprotected cameras.

For example, searching Google for inurl:CgiStart?page=Single will bring up dozens of links to Panasonic cameras and, in many cases, pan or tilt the camera. A search for axis inurl:view/index.shtml will bring up sites hosting cameras made by Axis.

Allowing an unprotected surveillance cameras to be visible over the internet is just asking for trouble.

There are privacy issues, for example, in allowing the general public to watch live images of your staff at work. Unfettered access to PTZ facilities make it simple for a thief or shoplifter to divert the camera away from where he wishes to strike.

Robert Schifreen's advice to anyone using an IP camera for surveillance:

Use the camera's in-built password protection rather than allowing the pictures to be streamed to the world.

Once you've set up the camera's securely, test it by attempting to connect from outside your company's network.

A small group of New York Civil Liberties Union volunteers walked the streets of Manhattan in search of video surveillance cameras. This group sought out every camera, public or private, which records people in public space. The NYC Surveillance Camera Project produced a comprehensive map of all 2,397 surveillance cameras in Manhattan. Nearly every square inch is covered with a camera of some kind.

From Boing Boing

An incredibly diverse coalition of high-powered public interest groups, industry associations, and corporations have signed an open letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office rejecting the "Broadcast Treaty," a US-led UN initiative that could do untold harm to artists, tech and telecoms companies, scholars, and people with disabilities.

Under the Broadcast Treaty, fair use, Creative Commons and the public domain would be trumped by the "broadcast right," which would be owned by the broadcaster of works. If you got a copy of a work over the air or over the Web that copyright would let you use (because it was in the public domain, because it was factual, or even because the creator had granted you permission), you'd still need to seek permission from the "caster," who would get a 50-year monopoly over the re-use of copies of the works it transmitted.

The proposal to extend this to the Web could put YouTube, Google Video, and innovative podcaster services out of business, by banning or restricting the way that these companies re-use each others' materials. And if you're a podcaster accustomed to lifting other podcasters' material and pasting it into your podcasts, you'll need permission from the company that hosts the podcasts, not just permission from the creator.

The Webcasting provision has been underwritten by Yahoo and Microsoft, whose advocates at the UN work tirelessly to keep the US on-track in pushing the rest of the world to taking it on board. The rest of the world doesn't want Webcasting, but it keeps sneaking back into the treaty, over howls of protests from artists and major governments.

Now some of Yahoo and Microsoft's competitors have woken up to the fact that they're about to get their lunches eaten for them and have signed onto a letter asking the USPTO to quit handing their doom to a couple of companies.

The letter's signatories are wonderful, ranging from AT&T and Verizon to Yale, to Dell and Intel, and library associations from the medical librarians to the law librarians and more. Also on the list are TiVo, EFF, Panasonic, H-P, the US musicians' managers, and many others.

Mike Cannon, a producer of the Mike Cannon Show at WNRB reports that Northcentral Technical College (NTC) shut down the less-than-two-year-old Wisconsin LPFM station down yesterday without any explanantion.

"We will lose the FCC license if NTC does not allow us to transfer it," Cannon's post on the microradio listserv said. "WNRB volunteers had no warning that this might happen, and are shocked when we got the e-mail today telling us not to come in. The studios is locked, and all our CDs and personal items are locked away to."

Cannon and others at the station urge listeners and others to contact the NTC President Lori Weyers, PH. D. at weyers@ntc.edu and ask her not to do anything that would put in jeopardy our license.

Apparently, the new station is not fully licensed yet, and is running on a construction permit due to expire on November 21, 2006. Stay tuned.

Wifi Camera Obscura reveals the electromagnetic space of our devices and the shadows that we create within such spaces, in particular our wifi networks which are increasingly found in coffee shops, offices and homes throughout cities of the developed world. We will take realtime "photos" of wifi space. This experiment is a collaboration between Usman Haque, Bengt Sjölén and Adam Somlai-Fischer.

Exhibition: Version 1 at Waves in Riga Aug 25 - Sept 17, 2006, then Version 2 at Perimeters, Boundaries and Borders in Lancaster, UK from Sept 29 to October 21.

La Superette is an annual event, an art sale held usually around the holiday season in December. We organize a temporary store where artists sell functional art in multiples at affordable prices. In addition to the sale we usually schedule musical performances as well as puppet shows, and video screenings to run throughout the day. The project is conceived and organized as a place for artists to meet and collaborate on a specific project. We publish a catalog zine, which distributes contact information of all participating artists, host a web catalog on this site, and produce a video catalog which is screened at the event. La Superette 2005 included more than 100 artists and attracted thousands of visitors and shoppers.

The 9th Annual La Superette will take place on Saturday December 9th at Eyebeam in conjunction with the Holiday Hackshop. Eyebeam is located at 540 West 21st Street, in Manhattan.

The deadline for online submission is October 30, 2006
* Work must be functional, original and cheap.
* Preference is given to: hacks, idea based crafts, amateurs, artists merchandising, and inventions.
* You price your own work, and receive 80% of the proceeds from any sale.
* La Superette is not responsible for damage to or loss of your work.

Read more rules and guidelines at http://www.lasuperette.org/call.php.

OPEN CALL: Sound works (under 1 min.) for Peter Stuyvesant's Ghost - Telephone Walk

Dates of Event: November 15-19, 2006. Files will be archived www.cityinasoundwalk.org and www.free103point9.org after the 5 day project period.

What To Make: Digital sound files of no more than 1 minute that will be heard by the audience via calls from either pay or cell phones to an ASTERIX server

PETER STUYVESANT'S GHOST is a public art project that mixes sound art with historical and environmental research. PSG was initiated by Lise Brenner and made possible through the skills and collaborative efforts of free103point9, New York Society for Acoustic Ecology, the NY Audubon Society, the Mannahatta Project, and the St. Mark's Historical Landmarks Fund, and features the work of individual artists Michelle Nagai, Edmund Mooney, Ryan Holsopple, Melissa Bliss, Nienke Rooijjakers, and others yet to be determined.

This call is for both 'realistic' and interpretive reactions, in the form of up to one minute long sound files, to history related to the Dutch colonial period (mid-late 17th century). PSG is sited within the footprint of Peter Stuyvesant's original farm (the Great Bowerie). Today this is the East Village, between 4th Avenue and the original East River shore, and from 23rd to 4th Streets.

The question is how, through sound, to create a non-urban space in the listeners mind, if only for a few seconds. The goal is that listening to the phone messages will create an imaginative link to historical reality.

Specific Event Description for THE TELEPHONE WALK: A self-guided walk through the area of Peter Stuyvesant's farm, referring to a guide booklet created by PSG collaborators and utilizing cell or payphones to access a open-source telephony server (Asterix). The printed material will indicate routes around the farm, with specific points indicated where participants are asked to stop and call into the server. A payphone will be available at all chosen points. After making the phone call, the participant will dial the message code indicated for that particular site, thereby accessing a short (no more than 1 minute) sound file made in response to historical/topographical information provided to the artist about the site, which could include information about Dutch cows and pigs, church bells, hymns, language; memories of shops, streets, sounds of Holland; local sounds of nature (wind, birds, water, shoreline, fields, orchards, dirt road); local work sounds (blacksmiths, milking, carpentry, printing); or other information/metaphors/ideas suggested by artists.

PROCESS OF APPLICATION: Send an email describing your idea, in a TEXT ONLY SINGLE PARAGRAPH, to twowhitecats24@hotmail.com. You will be contacted within 1-3 days.

IF ACCEPTED: The deadline for submission of completed files is NOVEMBER 1, 2006.

For more information of PETER STUYVESANT'S GHOST and its participating organizations and artists, see: http://www.cityinasoundwalk.org/psg

From Duncan Kennedy, BBC News

Striking teachers seized 12 private radio stations in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca and set buses on fire, as a long-running protest worsened.

They acted after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a government radio station already under their control. The strikers used the stations to tell parents to ignore Monday's start of the school year and keep children at home.

Teachers have been striking since May to demand higher wages and Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz's resignation.

The shooting began at a government-owned radio station already in the hands of the striking teachers. A number of rounds were fired by unknown gunmen, and the teachers say one of their members was injured. The attack prompted a violent retaliation by the teachers, and a number of buses were overturned and set on fire.

Dozens of the protesters also took over the privately-run radio stations and started broadcasting messages of defiance. Others armed with crude weapons blocked off some of the main roads into Oaxaca.

A spokesman for President Vicente Fox blamed the state government for attempting to take back the radio station by force. He said the attack was carried out without consulting the federal authorities and described it as a unilateral decision by the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz.

Governor Ruiz has become a key target for the teachers. Although their dispute started out in May as a campaign for more pay, it has since transformed into an attempt to get the governor to resign from office. The teachers say he is guilty of rigging the state election two years ago and of using heavy-handed tactics to deal with the strikers. The governor, who belongs to the former ruling party, the PRI, has refused to step down.

Last week a number of people were taken hostage by activists after gunmen opened fired on a teachers' march. They were later released.

The protests have also taken on a much wider context and have become woven into the continuing row over who won Mexico's presidential election.

Four months into this round of tension and parts of Oaxaca are starting to look ungovernable, and that could be a real challenge for the country's new leader.

At the closing conference of the EU Culture 2000 project 'Radio.Territories' in Vienna, Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann will be presenting a spectacle of European radio art, featuring highlights of the work that developed from the radio.territories project.

We would like people to send us miscellaneous one minute radio works which will be broadcast live on radio stations (including free103point9) across 7 countries on the 15th September 2006 from 19:00 - 20:00 Central European Time (+1 GMT). This is 2 p.m. EDT.

There will also be live micro-appearances in the studio from representatives of the contributing radio stations including Ed Baxter, the mastermind of Resonance 104.4-FM in London. Meistersoundtwister Dieb 13 from Vienna will be on hand to distort the proceedings.

Contributions are due by Sunday 10th September. Email them as high quality mp3 (256kbps stereo) to Sarah Washington at: washsarah@gmail.com.

Listen live on free103point9 Online Radio, www.free103point9.org.

Program will also air on:

Orange 94.0 (Vienna), fm station, http://o94.at/
Tlis (Bratislava), web station, http://www.tlis.sk/
Lemurie (Prague), web station, http://www.lemurie.cz/
Radio Grenouille (Marseille), fm station, http://www.grenouille888.org/
Resonance104.4fm (London), fm station, http://resonancefm.com/
Tilos Radio (Budapest), fm station, http://tilos.hu/
Radio Zero (Lisbon), web station, http://radio.ist.utl.pt/

Call for Submissions
Society for a Subliminal State Newsletter
Aka: Subliminal Statements
Due September 4, 2006

The ground speaks and has its way. It is beyond and below us yet
we take claim for what we do atop of it. Does it not have a mind of its
own - its own agency?

The Society for a Subliminal State is looking for true stories:
- Stories of land, sea, and air speaking.
- Time when presence, past and future combine.
- What is an alternative time of now.
- Do you know that islands move,
- Dead little animals create our homes,
- Lighthouses fall in love and transmit informative maps.
- History is a feeling not just a fact.

If you know anything about this please write us.

Send us your articles and poetry for the first issue of the Society for a
Subliminal State Newsletter.

Details

Deadline: Monday, September 4, 2006

Submission Requirements: The Society welcomes your articles and poetry on
any topics provoked by the above preamble. Submissions should be a maximum
of 500 words in length, but shorter submissions are appreciated. You may
submit images along with your written submission, but please do not submit
images alone.

In addition, please submit your full name as you would like it to appear
in print, and contact information that we can use to reach you.

Acceptable Formats:
• Text: rtf, txt, doc
• Images: png, tiff, jpeg, gif (8 MB max)

Email your Submissions to: subhist@subliminalstate.org

If accepted, your submissions will be published in the first issue of the
Society for a Subliminal State Newsletter, a compact format print
publication, and on the Society's web site. The print version will be
distributed for free to bookstores, art events and historical centers in
New York. It may be downloaded and copied for wider distribution.

About the Society

The Society for a Subliminal State is germinal organization started by
Carrie Dashow and Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg. The Society for a Subliminal
State agitates against the exclusive use of empirical evidence in the
search for truth. It is an organization that believes there many different
types of digging that may be productively undertaken. Still in its
infancy, the Society for a Subliminal State mirrors the form of a
traditional historical society, contributing to the public discourse
through a newsletter and a website. Governed by a growing board of
directors including artists, historians, and folklorists, the Society
accepts articles on topics avoided by publications that advocate fact
checking. The Society believes that if you see it three times then it too
may be the path to truth.

Visit the society's web site at http://www.subliminalstate.org/

Hairwaves: Call for works

WANTED: Radio, sound works & audio recordings on the theme of hair & hairdressing of any duration.
Hair themed playlists & musical dedications to hairstyles loved and loathed also welcomed.

DETAIL: this FM radio project will broadcast live from Glasgow for one day only. Transmitting to hair workers and their customers - barbers, hairdressers, salons stylists, wigmakers and other coiffed Glasgow listeners.

WHEN: deadline for receipt of work is Sep 29th 2006. The broadcast will take place in the Autumn.

FORMATS: Audio CD is the preferred format. But Dat, Mini Disc, MP3 (please do not send by email) Tape also accepted.

SEND TO: Hairwaves
Flat 2/2, 1088 Argyle Street,
Glasgow G3 8LY
SCOTLAND

CONTACT: hairwaves@gmail.com

The HAIRWAVES broadcast is part of a collaboration between Freight Design Glasgow and artists Mark Vernon & Zoë Irvine. It’s technical realization has been supported by Arts & Business Glasgow.

Deep Wireless - Radio Without Boundaries
Call for works on the theme: Trans-x

Deadline for submissions - September 30th, 2006

Trans = from, across, beyond, through; X = unknown quantity.

transmission, transport, transversal, transgender, transaction, transitive, translation, transportation, transverse, transnational, translocal…

Make your own theme by adding a word to replace the X and create a piece for radio that reflects it.

New Adventures in Sound Art invites submissions of any duration less than 60 minutes in length that reflects the theme TRANS-X, makes use of original sound sources in interesting and innovative ways and are suitable for radio broadcast. Note there will be a special category called “Radio Art Interventions” on the same theme for pieces one minute in length.

Pieces will be selected for broadcast within Canada and on several international radio stations in May 2006 as part of the Deep Wireless festival of radio and transmission art. Deep Wireless celebrates radio as a creative and artistic medium for cultural expression.

The International submissions will be considered for inclusion in the following:

-The Deep Wireless 4 radio art compilation CD
-The radio art interventions (1 minute pieces played guerilla-style on radio stations during the Deep Wireless festival)
-The Radio Art Salon – a listening gallery of radio art works exhibited for the month of May

A small number of Canadian artists will be chosen from the submissions to be part of the Deep Wireless Commissioning Programme in 2007 co-produced with CBC radio's outfront with residencies at Charles Street Video in Toronto.

On June 28, the Senate Commerce Committee completed its mark-up of comprehensive telecom reform legislation. The Committee included, without amendment, Title VI, the "Wireless Innovation Act of 2006," which directs the FCC to open the vacant, unused TV channel frequencies in each local TV market (also known as TV band “white space”) for unlicensed wireless broadband use (FCC Docket 04-186). Originally sponsored by Senators Stevens (R-AK), Allen (R-VA), Sununu (R-NH), Boxer (D-CA), Kerry (D-MA) and Dorgan (D-ND), the provision is supported by a majority of both parties due to the enormous potential it holds to spread affordable wireless broadband access, particularly to rural areas.

Unfortunately, the broadcast TV and wireless microphone industries oppose the proposal and continue to spread misinformation about it, arguing that allowing unlicensed use of this white space would cause harmful interference to the 13% of American households that continue to rely on over-the-air TV reception (the rest subscribe to cable or satellite TV). New America's Issue Brief—authored by three of the nation's most respected spectrum engineers—demonstrates why the broadcasters' technical claims are unfounded.

“Why Unlicensed Use of Vacant TV Spectrum Will Not Cause Interference to DTV Viewers,” explains why the use of “smart radios,” in combination with the conventional FCC rulemaking process, will be enough to ensure that DTV receivers and other licensed uses of the TV band are not harmed by unlicensed devices. This Issue Brief expands on and updates an earlier one released by New America in October 2005, and incorporates responses to the incumbents’ latest arguments on Capitol Hill. The co-authors are:

Michael Marcus, former FCC Associate Chief for Technology, Office of Engineering and Technology
Paul Kolodzy, former Chair, FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force
Andrew Lippman, founding Associate Director, MIT Media Lab

http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_File_3166_1.pdf

Other useful documents on the TV White Space debate are available free from New America, including:

Consumer/High-Tech White Space Coalition Fact Sheet: Benefits of White Space
New America Foundation/Free Press Analysis on TV White Space Availability in Sample of U.S. Markets
Wireless Public Safety Data Networks Operating on Unlicensed Spectrum
The Economic Case for Unlicensed Use of the TV White Space

Thanks for your interest.

Michael Calabrese
Director, Wireless Future Program
New America Foundation
www.spectrumpolicy.org

From Media Network weblog:

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PERMA) admitted yesterday that more than 100 seminaries were still operating illegal FM radio stations across the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). At least 115 illegal FM radio stations are in operation all over the NWFP, sources revealed, while requesting anonymity. They said that while most seminaries used FM radio broadcasts to impart Islamic teachings, many used them to spread sectarian hatred.

When PERMA first launched its crackdown on illegal stations, the police claimed to have put 90 such stations out of operation. However, PERMA sources described these claims as being far from reality, pointing out that all these radio stations were still broadcasting on air. They pointed out that if there had been an adequate counter-verification system to check police claims, PERMA officials would have at least have seen the seized equipment following the reported closure of illegal stations.

In addition to being used to stoke sectarian unrest, PERMA officials stressed that the illegal broadcasts posed a serious threat to the police’s wireless systems as well as to passenger and fighter plane navigation systems. The illegal FM stations are hijacking others frequencies since they have not obtained their own frequency waves from the army-run Frequency Allocation Board.

However, PERMA sources admitted that the authority lacked the sufficient staff strength to adequately crack down on illegal FM radio stations. “We have 167 staff members countrywide. We cannot control the whole country with such a small staff body,” they admitted.

(Source: Islamic Republic News Agency)

Eyebeam supports artists through residencies, teaching positions and commissioned projects. As these opportunies arise, information and applications will be made available here. Applications for Eyebeam's Fellows are online now. To apply please visit:
http://eyebeam.org/production/onlineapp/

Applications for Eyebeam's Artists' Residencies are currently on hold until Summer 2006. The AIR Prorgam, now in its fifth year, is being evaluated and adjusted to better meet the needs of our artists. During this time artists from the Fall 2005 Residency cycle continue to work in our recently renovated studios.

From Infowars.com via RawFamily.com:

Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko from Komsomolskaya Pravda Newspaper in Moscow decided to learn first-hand how harmful cell phones are. There is no magic in cooking with your cell phone. The secret is in the radio waves that the cell phone radiates.

The journalists created a simple microwave structure as shown in the picture. They called from one cell phone to the other and left both phones on talking mode. They placed a tape recorder next to phones to imitate sounds of speaking so the phones would stay on.

After 15 minutes: The egg became slightly warm.

25 minutes: The egg became very warm.

40 minutes: The egg became very hot.

65 minutes: The egg was cooked. (As you can see.)

CALL for PROPOSALS - - - - - PETER STUYVESANT’S GHOST

IMPORTANT DATES:

July 21, 2006: 100 WORD TEXT ONLY description of your idea and contact info emailed to: twowhitecats24@hotmail.com
July 30, 2006: Notification of acceptance of idea
August 15, 2006: Bios and descriptive text for program (guide map) due
Sept. 15, 2006: Soundfile due
Nov. 15-19, 2006: Performance dates

Coordinators: Lise Brenner, Ryan Holsopple, Michelle Nagai

Contact for Questions: Lise Brenner - twowhitecats24@hotmail.com

Final Nature of Artistic Contribution: Digital sound files of up to 1 minute to be accessed during performance dates via pay or cell phone. They may also be available on a CD. We are looking for both ‘realistic’ and interpretive reactions to historical information. The terrain this project will cover (pictured above) is the footprint of Peter Stuyvesant’s original farm (Bouwerie), which included the area from 4th Ave. to the original East River shore, and from 4th Street to 22nd Street. Files will be archived and accessible on the internet after the performance dates.

Date of Event: November 15-19, 2006
Specific Event Description: A self-guided walk through the area of Peter Stuyvesant’s farm, using a printed map and utilizing cell or payphones to access a central open-source telephony server (Asterix). The printed material will indicate a route around the farm, with specific points indicated where participants are asked to stop and call into the server. A payphone will be available at all chosen points. After making the phone call, the participant will dial the message code indicated for that particular site, thereby accessing a short (no more than 1 minute) sound file made in response to historical/topographical information provided to the artist about the site, which could include information about Dutch cows and pigs, church bells, hymns, language; memories of shops, streets, sounds of Holland; local sounds of nature (wind, birds, water); local work sounds (blacksmiths, milking, carpentry, printing); or other information suggested by artists.

Overall Project Description: PSG is a civic art project, inspired by the rapid cultural and physical changes engendered in this area by the Dutch colonial period. PSG encourages a multi-leveled understanding of the place that the East Village is now. Using sound as the primary performance medium, tapping into the visceral, non-cognitive response that hearing, like smell, tends to generate, PSG explores the contemporary topography while making palpable the pre-urban terrain of Peter Stuyvesant’s 17th century farm. Through guided walks and discussion forums PSG will facilitate activities that connect past with current truths, and, perhaps, visions for the future, as alternative realities flicker briefly into life, and historical and environmental perceptions are deepened. The overall goal is a rich, many-layered experience of this terrain, literally moving audiences through it, primed for careful listening to what is currently here to be heard, while opening up imagination, and awareness of the past.

Specifically, PSG aims to: facilitate active participation on the part of a widely varied audience; consciously link art and performance making with history; invite contributions from artists that maintain this dual focus on historical relevance and an actively participating audience; bring together NYC- and Netherlands-based contributors; and explore the role of history in bringing the present into sharper focus.



From Tom Roe:

I have always joked that the current low-power FM bill approved by both Senate and House subcommittees, would only get to the floor if it was attached to some bill like the "death penalty for flag burners."

Well, I almost got my wish this week. Congress is voting on a Constitutional amendment against flag burning, and Senator John McCain has attached the "Local Community Radio Act" to the "Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006" (the Senate version of the anti-net neutrality bill), Mediageek reports.

"McCain’s amendment would restore the FCC’s original spacing requirements for the (LPFM) service, allowing LPFM stations to be closer than three adjacent frequencies to other stations," Mediageek reports.

LPFM got through Congress a few years back after focused challenges in the courts, intense lobbying, and thousands of Americans committing civil disobedience on the airwaves. The LPFM service, however, was weakened at the last moment largely due to a fake "interference" claim that has since been scientifically debunked.

Over a thousand new LPFMs would be allowed if this amendment were to be passed and signed. And the phone companies would rule the world/internet.

I almost got my wish/nightmare, and it just gets worse. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg inserted an exception in the LPFM bill for "significantly populated states," according to Inside Radio. The report is vague, but it may mean no low-power stations for New Jersey.