Become a tour guide and take artist Kelly Andres on a one-hour bicycle ride of your Banff. Andres will accompany you with her mobile sound lab, Songbike, transforming your narrated ride into a unique soundscape composition broadcast live to the world on www.radio90.fm.

In August 2006, Songbike was presented as a concept for the Interactive Screen 06 competitive pitch session at the Banff New Media Institute. It was awarded a co-production residency to develop the project. Songbike traveled to Vancouver to participate in Video In/Video Out’s Signal and Noise Festival, April 19th-21st. Although Songbike was not fully developed, it provided participants the opportunity to create unique soundscape compositions based on specific bike routes in west and east Vancouver.

The concept of Songbike is to create mobile, urban, soundcape compositions to share through a website. The idea is that anyone can build a “Songbike” by throwing together whatever consumer electronics they can find to make a recording or broadcasting unit. Each time Songbike is performed it is different… never a prescribed set of components or objects. Songbike uses sound as a subtle activist gesture - narratives of current issues, noise pollution, the body extended, politics of space, time and movement arise through cues only available while listening.

Between now and November 4, you can: RECORD audio of election coverage on a Voices of America station; UPLOAD your recordings and tag them according to language and content; DOWNLOAD from the searchable pool of available recordings; REMIX the broadcasts and UPLOAD them back to the website; LISTEN to the recordings and remixes online anytime or to the radio broadcast at Audacity of Desperation in Los Angeles on Election Day.

The Voice of America radio service was initiated in World War Two and dramatically expanded during the Cold War to win “hearts and minds” for the new American Empire. All major Cold War players operated such “information services”, which were collectively called “The Voices” in some targeted countries. Recognizing that the broadcasting service was largely a tool of cultural and foreign policy propaganda, Congress forbade the Voice of America from broadcasting directly to American citizens in 1948. Though slightly retooled, VOA persists today: the attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, invigorated Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu broadcasting. Currently, the Voice of America radio and television networks produce more than 1,000 hours of original programming per week in 45 languages, much of it covering American politics and regional foreign policy between blocks of popular music.

The 2008 election is widely viewed as a potential turning point in US foreign policy that has become ever more militaristic and interventionist in the last decade, and the prospect of the first African American president has galvanized the hopes of people around the world. Yet those who are most affected by American military and corporate action are excluded from American electoral politics. They are, quite literally, voiceless.

“Voices of America” offers an international audience an opportunity both to monitor the United States’ self-presentation abroad by recording VOA programming and speak back to it by remixing those broadcasts. The project obliquely points out the injustice that participation in US politics is so tightly restricted and questions, in a non-polemical fashion, how much change is possible given the persistence of Cold War, now War on Terror, infrastructure. In the arena of cultural politics, the project suggests a network of global citizens offering revised image of America’s carefully-constructed image back to itself.

Today’s radio spectrum is predominately utilized by the military and governmental organizations, with government regulating bodies doling out expensive licenses to corporations for the right to broadcast en masse in public space. These powerful “one way” broadcast licenses have come to be understood as ‘radio’ versus the initial conception of radio as a “many to many” communications medium. Except for a small fraction of frequencies allocated to amateur operators, who only need to pass a simple exam to receive the right to use the spectrum, there is no other way for the public to gain any access to this resource, arguably one of Earth’s most important, and only inexhaustible resources.

Our situation today is far from Guglielmo Marconi’s visions of radio’s ability to save lives and enlighten humanity, or Velimir Klebnikov’s ‘Radio of the Future’. Instead, today’s radio spectrum is a tightly controlled, profitized commodity. In this light, DAREDX seeks to re-establish the public’s presence and right of occupation within the radio spectrum. While there exists an active and progressive amateur radio community worldwide, it is out of sight from the general public. DAREDX will expose and access the radio spectrum by aurally re-broadcasting nightly explorations throughout the radio spectrum. Activating the evening air of Cabot Square in order to re-establish the connection of the spectrum to public space. DAREDX will allow the public in the square to hear the signals we are enveloped in. Re-invigorating the words of an infamous amateur operator in the early 1900s when told by the US Navy to remove himself from a particular frequency: “Say, you navy people think you own the ether. Who ever heard of the navy, anyway? Beat it, you, beat it.” The spectrum will no longer remain closed to the ears and eyes of the public, and instead will become part of the natural landscape of Cabot Square.

Matthew Biederman, working under the call sign VA2XBX/P will be operating a high frequency transceiver in the open air of Cabot Square. He will be attempting long-distance communication with as many different operators as possible over the course of the intervention. Each complete communication will be logged and mapped creating a diary of the airwaves every night (radio.dare-dare.org). Additionally, DAREDX will attempt a set of digital communications, in order to receive SSTV (SlowScan Televsion), WEFAX (from NOAA Satellites) and many more. All of the actions’ audio will be played in Cabot Square, creating a sonic landscape of the electromagnetic spectrum in real time. All of the audio will be archived and made available under a creative commons license. The aggregation of these actions build into the overall DAREDX project.

Originally from the United States, Matthew Biederman (Montréal) has been doing performances, installations and exhibitions since the mid-1990’s. www.mbiederman.com www.spectralecology.org.

Vox Novus, in collaboration with the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC), is inviting composers to submit recorded works 60 seconds or less in duration to be included in the first Canadian version of the annual 60×60 Project. 60 compositions will be selected to be played continuously in a one-hour concert. The Canadian 60×60 concert season will begin with a debut in Montréal and continue throughout Canada in venues to be announced. Concerts may also include a visual component (a clock, video clips, spectrographs, dance, etc.). The works will also be broadcast on radio stations and featured on a Sonus.ca dedicated gallery. Please submit your recorded work(s) and submission form(s) before 31 March (postmarked). You may submit your works online or on a CDR; see submission guidelines below. Your work may be selected for both the Canadian and the International 60×60 projects.

During the concert each of the 60 pieces selected will begin precisely at the beginning of the minute, this will mark the end of one piece and the beginning of another. There will be no pause between the pieces. Works may be less than 60 seconds in length, but may not exceed 60 seconds. Selected works that are shorter than 60 seconds will be “padded” with silence either before, after, or surrounding the composition. Please note that the total duration of the work including silence may NOT exceed sixty seconds.

Eligibility:
The call is open to composers of all ages and career stages who live in Canada, and to Canadian composers living in Canada or abroad. All other composers may participate in the international 60×60 project (see below).

Eligible works:
Any sound or music captured on recorded media, which does not require live performers for its presentation in concert. The piece may be of any style and may comprise electronic sounds, field recordings, recordings of voice or musical instruments, or other sound sources. Recordings of acoustic compositions SHOULD NOT be accompanied by musical scores. Works submitted should be created specifically for this project.

More information can be found at:
http://www.60×60.yaeldad.com (Canadian 60×60)
http://www.voxnovus.com/60×60.htm (International 60×60)
http://cec.concordia.ca (Canadian Electroacoustic Community)
http://sonus.ca (SONUS, the CEC’s online electroacoustic Jukebox)

Virtual Cities and Oceans of If - An International Virtual Residency and Event on Global Warming hosted by Aviva Rahmani on TalkShoe.com. Virtual Cities and Oceans of If addresses global warming and political conflicts by demonstrating, analyzing and interpreting the local impact of global warming at international real world sites. Aviva Rahmani talks with artists, scientists, and others every Tuesday morning at 10 am. Guests are ecological art practitioners and affiliates.

Coming up:

10:00 AM EDT Tue, January 8, 2008 “What Does Sex Have to Do With it?” with Carolee Schneemann
10:00 AM EDT Tue, January 15, 2008 “Business Systems designed by artists?” with Paul McCarthy
10:00 AM EDT Tue, January 22, 2008 “Public Art and ecological art” with Wendy Feuer
10:00 AM EDT Tue, February 19, 2008 Karen Frostig, co-editor of Blaze

Episodes are participatory and accessible live by regular phone, Skype or computer. They can be downloaded directly from the TalkShoe site or iTunes after recording.

About Aviva Rahmani

Ecological artist Aviva Rahmani’s work has reflected environmental and social concerns throughout her forty-year career. Her projects range from complete landscape restorations to museum venues that reference painting, sound and photography. Early influences on her work include interdisciplinary classical studies, activism, city planning and the merging of science with aesthetics. Rahmani’s current work reflects her interest in the application of GIS and other mapping analysis, to “explore potential solutions for urban and rural water degradation in large landscapes.” Rahmani has taught, lectured and performed internationally, and is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including two from the Nancy H. Gray Foundation for Art in the Environment in 1999 and 2000. She is currently using the internet “to perform residencies without the international travel that spews jet fuel over the earth’s waters.”

Art’s Birthday 2008 Mississauga will take place at the Great Hall in the Mississauga Civic Centre on January 17, 2008, 2-10 pm :: Admission & Parking are FREE (note: buses are also available from Toronto). CKLN radio will broadcast the day’s activities both on radio from 2 to 5 p.m. and on the Internet from 2 to 10 p.m.

“This marks the third year of celebrations by NAISA that explores Art and media within an international exchange context and the first with the city of Mississauga,” said Darren Copeland, artistic director of New Adventures in Sound Art. “Art’s Birthday encapsulates the Adventure in New Adventures in Sound Art.”

The program, which spans eight hours, will feature roving reporter Darla Kitty (aka Halifax sound artist Eleanor King), who will keep guests up-to-date on happenings throughout the day; an unveiling of a Mississauga sound map created by residents with recordings of environmental sounds around the City; a radio transmitter race between ‘free radio’ philosopher/pioneer media artist, Tetsuo Kogawa from Japan and Halifax sound artist Stephen Kelly; DJ-artists, Youth Troopers for Global Awareness, Mississauga Children’s Choir and the Back2Basics dancers; and of course, there will be cake. Sponsor CKLN radio will broadcast the day’s activities both on radio from 2 to 5 p.m. and on the Internet from 2 to 10 p.m. Information on bus transportation and the program are available at mississauga.ca.

Art’s Birthday is an annual exchange-art event celebrated on January 17 by a collection of artists and artist organizations around the world. The day was originally proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art, but on January 17, Art was born when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. An evolving network of participants now celebrates Art’s Birthday with exchange and telecommunications-art.

There’s still time for radio stations to participate in this worldwide celebration of art. Log into www.artsbirthday.net for more information or call or email Nadene Thériault-Copeland at 416-516-7413 / 416.910.7231 or naisa[at]naisa.ca and she’ll direct you to the right person in order to add your event.

Also see this.

Blue Morph is an interactive installation that uses nanoscale images and sounds derived from the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Nanotechnology is changing our perception of life and this is symbolic in the Blue Morpho butterfly with the optics involved - that beautiful blue color is not pigment at all but patterns and structure which is what nano-photonics is centered on studying. The lamellate structure of their wing scales has been studied as a model in the development of fabrics, dye-free paints, and anti-counterfeit technology such as that used in monetary currency. Blue Morpho has intrigued scientists for generations because of its subtle optical engineering that manipulated photons. Today, its dazzling iridescent wings are giving rise to a market trying to mimic its wonder and create a counterfeit proof currency and credit cards. The optics are no doubt fascinating but the real surprise is in the discovery of the way cellular change takes place in a butterfly. Sounds of metamorphosis are not gradual or even that pleasant as we would imagine it. Rather the cellular transformation happens in sudden surges that are broken up with stillness and silence. Then there are the eight pumps or “hearts” that remain constant throughout the changes, pumping the rhythm in the background. During the transformation to emergence each flattened cell of the wing becomes a nanophotonic structure of black protein and space leading to iridescence.

Nano is not only making the invisible visible but also changing our way of relating to “silence” or making the in-audible audible. With all the noise of chattering technologies and minds, we propose the interactivity to be stillness for in this empty space of nano we can get in touch with the magic of continuous change. But most of all we embrace the absurd and in a surge of laughter recognize our limited human viewpoints. The piece emerges in sound and pattern only when the viewer is STILL and SILENT.

Download radio interview by Claes Andreasson:

Throughout the last decades artists have continued organising annual celebrations in the spirit of Filliou’s “Eternal Network” or “La Fête permanente”. In 2008 people all over the world will again be preparing numerous networked birthday parties for art, several of these under the motto “Forever Young”.

Kunstradio invites you to join their celebration by contributing presents to their party, which will take place on site at Common Ground, QDK, Museumsquartier Q21 in Vienna from 8 pm on January 17th 2008.

These presents they invite you to upload to their present pool online.

They will listen in on your presents and streams during their party on site in Vienna, and artists will re-mix and further distribute these online and via the live Kunstradio broadcast on the cultural channel on the Austrian National Radio Ö1 from 11 – 12 pm CET, as well as on the EBU satellite.

A selection of presents will also be presented in later on air editions of Kunstradio.

Should you have any questions or plan to organise a party yourself, please do not hesitate to contact us: kunstradio [at] kunstradio.at

Spread the word! This is a party you can bring as many people and presents to as you wish!

More about Art’s Birthday can be found here: http://www.artsbirthday.net

What do we want?
A present. Not for us, for Art.

Which present?
sound, images, text, love

How?
Streamed, e-mailed, snail-mailed or uploaded at:
http://www.kunstradio.at/PROJECTS/AB2008/presents-upload.php

Format?
mp3 files, live-streams, images, webcams, etc.

When?
Until January 17th, 2008 (from 20:00 CET until late, (19:00 GMT))

Where?
on air: 11 – 12 p.m. CET Ö1 (FM 92.0, MW 1476, SW)
on line: http://www.kunstradio.at/PROJECTS/AB2008
on site: Vienna, details to be announced

Why?
To celebrate.

What?
Art’s Birthday.

Micro.fm snatches the radio from tv towers and broadcasting agencies and instead of showering down on the city, the radio waves beam out of the districts and neighborhoods. Micro.fm uses small fm transmitters and wireless access points to broadcast in an area like a house or a neighborhood, it allows everybody with broadband access to run a tiny radio transmitter covering the own block. Everyone who passionately cares about his or her neighborhood adopts the medium and populates the ether. Backyard Radio reintroduces radio into the context of social media and peer to peer networks. A digitized version of the micro radio of the early 80’s, it is a great pleasure to have Tetsuo Kogawa present with the Radia.Fm Network. A long weekend of lectures, workshops, concerts and broadcasts take radio art apart and put it back together again.
Schedule:
1. November, 20:00 - 22.00 C-Base, Rungestr. 20, U/S-Bahn Jannowitzbrücke
Lecture: Tetsuo Kogawa - The History of Micro.Fm

Micro radio used to be a compromise to restrain oneself from using higher power transmitter because of the financial or regulatory reason. The first conscious micro radio started in the mid-1970s in Italy. As Félix Guattari wrote, “des millions et des millions d’Alice en puissance”, over a thousand of micro free radio stations appeared along with the ‘Autonomia’ movement in Italy and then influenced other countries especially France. In Australia, the situation was different. Under the clever decision of Whitlam government, many cities started to have a new type of multi-lingual and multi-cultural community radio stations in the late 70s. In Japan, “Mini FM” boom began in the early 80s. It was a totally different type of micro radio: radio with literally micro-powered transmitter. It was a miracle that such a micro radio did work as a radio. So, the micro radio scene of the 80s was a mixture of the Italian free radio and a new element of the technological paradox. (…) (excerpt: A Micro Radio Manifesto)

2. November, 21:00 M12, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13, 1st Floor, Berlin-
Alexanderplatz (Berlin Carré)

Live: The Multitude in Micro Radio - Tetsuo Kogawa
FM: I/O Live: Tetsuo Kogawa, Knut Aufermann, & Sarah Washington
A Radio Party with DJs Every Kid on Speed & MyTube YouSpace ‘Oriental Dubstep Mashup’

3. November, 18:00 - 20:00
United Nations Plaza, Platz der Vereinten Nationen 14a (WUNP -95.2FM)

May a Hundred Broadcasts Bloom! With Neurotransmitter (NYC)
Guests : Knut Aufermann (LDN), Shu Lea Cheang (LDN), Toni Dimitrov (SKP), Tetsuo Kogawa (IST), Serhat Koksal (TRK), Verena Kuni (FRA), Etienne Noiseau (MRS), Rocket Scientists (LIS), DJ Sanyi (BUD), Sarah Washington (LDN) and others.

4. November 18:00-20:00 bootlab, Oranienburgerstr. 54 (U OranienburgerTOR)

Imagine Radio 2.0 : closing discussion with Radia.fm If the official death of analogue radio is announced for 2010 when it will be switched to digital, will radio then just disappear?

Organized by Klubradio GmbH, funded by the German Cultural Foundation