Title: FAIR 87.9 FM

Date: March 18, 2009.

Materials: Pirate radio station, FM transmitter, Internet, Computers, Microphones, Speakers, Automobile, Radio

Dimensions: Variable Dimensions

Location: Spectrum Project Space, Northbridge, WA, Australia

Keywords: Interactive audio installation/event, free radio, interact, collective art, transmission

Website: http://fairfm.info

Description:

FAIR FM was a nomadic community pirate radio station, initially created and exhibited during a month-long artist-residency at Spectrum Project Space, Northbridge, Western Australia in March, 2009. An operational broadcast booth was built into the gallery, which housed broadcasting equipment including a mixing console, transmitter, computer, and a large antenna.  In the adjacent gallery space, a series of portable radios, including a small automobile, aired the station live to viewers. An array of advertising materials including promotional posters, T-shirts, and other media adorned the walls. Broadcasting on 87.9FM through the use of a low-power FM transmitter, FAIR FM had a broadcast radius of approximately 1km in Northbridge[1], which technically classified it as a micro station. The station went live on air at 2:00pm on Wednesday 09 March, 2009 and broadcast daily from 2:00 pm to 9:00 pm Wednesday through Sunday until 05 April 2009. During these broadcasts, the viewers in the gallery and the public at large were invited to create, perform, and broadcast their own audio programming over the station, which resulted in an eclectic mix of pirated music, live spoken word, musical performances, and sound art. Throughout the duration of the four week residency approximately 15 individuals became involved in the station, including a street busker from Athens, Greece, a professional nightclub DJ from Sydney, the local Perth punk band - Red Triangle, and an array of other interested audiophiles, musicians, and sound artists.

The concept and motivation for creating this project was in response to my situation as an artist within the field of practice, which aestheticised an idea of social relationships, as in relational artistic practices. At the time, researching a theory of relational aesthetic in order to understand the relationship between artist and viewer as an inter-subjective relationship, I became focused on creating an environment in which the viewer could immediately transcend, or change their role as receiver in the often one-way communicative directive often experienced in a gallery setting. I was interested in challenging the boundaries of the inter-subjective experience facilitated by the work of art. This inspired the name FAIR FM, an acronym for Found Air Instant Radio, or Free and Interactive Radio, or any other acronym the users could create. Modelled after initiatives such as Radio Alice, a free broadcast radio station in Bologna, Italy in the late 1970s in which Felix Guattari was involved, I sought to create an open line of communication between the subjective spaces encountered in the gallery and the spaces that existed beyond.[2]

Specifically, I was interested in creating an artwork that moved beyond the subjective boundaries that I create when I make art as a form of self-expression. In other words, I had the urge to explore art making for others, in a way that I feel I had not previously explored in past projects. This meant pushing the boundaries of my practice into new, unseen, unknown realms.  Radio broadcast inspired me as an opportune medium to work through as it represented an invisible link through which one can communicate and connect beyond the boundaries of time and space. I have had experiences in my past working as a disc lockey at a small community radio station, WMEB 91.9 FM, in Orono, Maine, USA, inspiring another reason to use radio as my chosen medium of expression.

Through the use of radio broadcast as an expressive, artistic medium, in this project I desired to manipulate an everyday channel of media through which I could subvert the system of communication and exchange. Through subverting a communication system such as radio, I enabled an altered position in which I could experience my role as artist, or maker, in new terms, in this case in a reversal of roles, whereby the viewer or listener became the maker, or broadcaster and I as maker became the listener. In a system of radio the majority of its users are consumers, the countless throngs of listeners that complete the system as a form of mass media are at the end of the communication. Traditionally radio operates as a one-way medium of communication. Foreseen by 19^th century socialist Edward Bellamy, radio was pre-empted as the “collective telephone” in which the masses would be mobilised by the propaganda of nationalist corporations of industrial power (Mattelart & Mattelart, 1998, p. 17). It is not difficult to see radio operating in the form that Bellamy foreshadowed.  While it may be argued that radio functions as a medium of expression[3], fostering and communicating the musical expression of individuals and communities, the current state of radio is a far cry from free with the majority of publicly broadcast channels produced by national, and multi-national media corporations. I was interested in facilitating others in an attempt to challenge these boundaries, which to me represent the power relationships that exist within the field, in the creation and reception of art, or in a way of subjectivity in general.

The creation of FAIR FM enacted my response to these observations. The development of pirate radio and free radio supports an idea of opening up radio as form of mass communication, operating beyond the boundaries of control and governance of communication often encountered in modern society; FAIR FM challenges this means of control. In short, FAIR FM questioned, to what degree are my own communications controlled by the formal constructs of contemporary society and my social role as an artist?  To what degree are my own forms of communication, my own productions, or programming, formulated through a similar type of conditioning?

Beyond my desire to confront these boundaries through this project, FAIRFM allowed me to explore my practice as an open, and evolving process of creative social interactions. Somewhere between performed and lived action, by creating a public pirate radio station I could create possibilities and opportunities to move between roles, to aestheticise exchange on a communal level.

When viewers entered the gallery, I often greeted them over air, which was broadcast through the radios stationed throughout the space. Inviting these viewers to enter the booth and become active users, I had a number of individuals, prompted by their own musical and audio interests to get involved in various ways (see Figures 22, 25).  However, these experiences were very limited.  In many ways it was the lack of interaction, the limitedness of the station as my channel of communication to the public. In most instances the station acted as a platform for individuals to perform.

Modelling FAIR FM within a theory of relational aesthetics, I was examining my own “inter-human” exchanges facilitated through the pirate radio station as the “aesthetic object” that Bourriaud discusses as “producing sociability” (1998/2002, p. 33). These exchanges occurred through the communicative aspects of radio broadcast. FAIR FM functioned as a means of enabling an extension of myself in a way that challenged my boundaries of communication. Through this challenge I pushed myself to experience my role as maker of my subjective self, as artist, in an extended form, through more temporal, distanciated processes.

Because radio broadcast, as a communicative means of interaction and exchange often functions in a one-to-many context, it can be an incredibly introspective process, and in turn self-reflexive.  FAIR FM extended this representation of one-to-one communication, however the majority of the time I felt is if my communications were “one-to-none”.  Becoming lost in the self-centredness of the radio station was another instance.  Sitting, often alone in the stations broadcast booth, I became very aware of myself, listening to and monitoring myself.

Knowing that the communications I created through the process of broadcast were being transmitted beyond the space of my own perception, I was sending out signals. These signals represented attempts to define my position. One program entitled, Organised Silence, a broadcast in which I transmitted only the white noise that was created in the process of producing the broadcast itself. This gap, its space, created a divisional space, a void through which I could find another form of distance between my place and myself.

The temporality of the various transmissions I created through FAIR FM became relevant as a means of producing observable instances of myself, occasionally interrupted by the presence of another, in which, I would offer the station to that individual allowing them to gain control of the transmission.  This immediate transfer, in ways allowed me to disrupt my subjective processes, and the communication, transmission of this subjectivity.  In ways this was the first instance of exchange that occurs in the collaborative effort involved in communication. The possibility of taking over a pirate radio station, in my opinion, affords the possibility of extending ones subjectivity into inter-subjective space, yet a space that is transient and ephemeral as the radio broadcast itself. However, this transfer between viewer and user, or in this case listener and DJ, never transpired to anything more than an exchange of control.  In hopes of further extending this process of exchange into a more sustained form, FAIR FM was revised into a second installation, which was included in the exhibition, what is displace?.

[2] Guattari’s interest in free radio was in its “form and mode of social organization” (Multitudes 21, 2005, n.p.).

[3] See article Wrightson, K (2003). An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology. As Wrightson explains, “In the developed world, sound has less significance and the opportunity to experience “natural” sounds decreases with each generation due to the destruction of natural habitats. Sound becomes something that the individual tries to block, rather than to hear; the lo-fi, low information soundscape has nothing to offer. As a result, many individuals try to shut it out through the use of double glazing or with acoustic perfume–music. Music–the virtual soundscape–is, in this context, used as a means to control the sonic environment rather than as a natural expression of it. Broadcast speech and music provide the same opportunity for control, turning the sonic environment into a commodity. Networks, transmitters and satellites extend the acoustic community across the entire planet, a fact that has been utilised for fair deeds and foul. Schafer refers to the latter use of sound as “sound imperialism” (1977a, 77)” (2003, p. 3).

As the roles and responsibilities of those associated with the ‘art world’ are continuously shifting, expanding, and transforming, we see many artists adapting their practices into what can be considered ‘curatorial’ roles.  Works like “The Play of the Unmentionables” (1992), by Joseph Kosuth or the more recent “Fabiola” (2009) by Francis Alÿs are prime examples of how artists, through an appropriation of the work of other artists, act in very much a curatorial mode, selecting and organising art as a means of producing art.  Why?  Is it a reflex of the artist to act out the conditions that we operate within? After century’s of the artist or the art being exposed to the processes of curation in traditional gallery and museum contexts,  are we as artists ready to move on, move past the conventional art world activity of curation.  Art seems to have reached a climactic reflexivity as the conventions of institutional art are replacing themselves by canceling themselves out; when the activity of art references its conventions as a means of progression.  Is it time to consider where curation is headed? Why, as artists do we feel the need to be curatorial in our practices? What is the role of the curator in today’s open-source world?

In May 2009, the Positions in flux: On the changing role of the artist and institution in the networked society took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands at the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMK).  This symposium spearheaded much needed discussion on these very questions concerning the transformation of curatorial roles in contemporary arts and media practice. A series of three panels featuring discussion by international artists, academics, theorists, and curators addressed the issues of the media culture and art institutions, contemporary media/art and political action, and art production and curation. According to an overview of the symposium, a major topic was the idea of open source networking in media and information technology and the relationships with curatorial processes. Presented by Joasia Krysa founder of KURATOR, “a cultural organisation operating as a curatorial agency and research platform at the intersection of art and technology. It has a particular interest in an emerging discourse and practice that links curating with software and networks.”

Aligning the processes and responsiblities of art curation with those of the software programmer provides an interesting angle on the placement of the purpose and function of contemporary curation (and conversely programming).  With the potential for closing off cooperative and egalitarianistic development in a closed-sourced system, the necessity of open-source concepts, as demonstrated in Linux operating systems or creative commons licensing increasingly applied to media, are absolutely crucial for the productivity and advancement of the Web or the Net, as well as the practices involved in the critical and conscious development of these media structures.

It is this very concept of an open source, a source of information and its design that is open and accessible for use and more importantly concerted cooperative revision, that in the advent of new technology drives innovation to its fullest potential. Within the institution of artistic practice there is a similar open-source ideal that spurs interactivity, dialogue, collaboration, and other shared forms of cooperative experience. In many ways it is a trans-evolutionary activity, the conversations that take place through artists inspiring each other, or especially artists inspiring non-artists, i.e. curators, viewers, collectors, critics, etc.

Coming back to the process of curation, it becomes important consider how, through this lens of open-source activity, the conversation between the concpets of art curation and of art production. In today’s media saturated atmosphere, the processes of how is art made vs. how these processes are communicated become important in this discussion.

While the idea of curating is in essence a specialisation in the selection, presentation, and composition of cultural collection and exhibition, it can succinctly be summed up as a process of controlling and managing the boundaries of individual and social identifiers, thus communicated through cultural forms.

So how is the act of curation, in institution, in individual practice, in its many cultural forms, moving beyond this at present, how is this evolving? While the NIMK symposium considers art presentation in its proximity to the design, development, and distribution of software and other new media, there is also a more social or even political orientation of curation that is linked to interactive and relational artistic activity. Looking forward to this contemporary concept of ‘open-source’ media, it is the methods by which these relationships can produce new possibilities for the creation and exhibition of art and ideas.

The Netherlands Media Art Institute describing a session at the Positions in Flux conference, questions these relationships between artist and curator, media and art, production and presentation as follows:

“This session deals with the concept of open source for art production and its presentation. The open source movement is driven by the idea of collective, process-based, sustainable production and improvement. In software development this strategy has already proven to be valid; however can this model be applied to other products such as artworks or even exhibitions? In how far does the open source model differ from other forms of artistic collaboration? Is there a new role model for both the artist and the curator in the future? Which (economic) value and impact has expertise in open source production? How could institutions and organisations respond to this trend? How could institutions and organisations respond to this trend and create public domains?”

Responding to ideas about interactivity, selectivity, social modeling, media development, and communicative practices, my artistic practice can be used as a means of focusing some of these questions. Recently, I have moved into this curatorial mode through the development of a community pirate radio station, FAIR FM.  This radio station was set-up in an art gallery and project space in the city. Passerbys, viewers, and gallery-goers were invited develop programming, host a radio show, or volunteer for the station. In many ways, as the artist coordinating the project, I was required to act in a curatorial capacity; acting as a conduit, a mediator, a selector and organiser (at least initially), working with the users, helping them become the artist in a sense, initiating them into their role as producer, radio host, or actor.  In many cases, those interested in working with the project, developing content for broadcast, were artists, musicians, and active creative-types.  My role was really more of an initiator and facilitator, thus adapted roles of the curator.

My initial interest in the project was not so much to define what was exhibited, but rather to allow a space for this collective exhibition, or rather presentation to evolve. The idea of exhibition vs. presentation comes into play.

The FAIR FM project allowed for the development of communication through the opening up of communicative spaces.  In this way the project was an open-source situation in its practical accessibility through artistic interaction, an open-source art event. The outcomes of FAIR FM fostered an adaptation of a certain type of curation of what was to become art within the interactive model provided through the project. In other words, my process of allowing other to be “the DJ selector” on air developed wholly out of a sensitivity of traditional media (and art to a degree) censorship.

Thinking again about the relationships between curation and open-source programming, and the statement that “The open source movement is driven by the idea of collective, process-based, sustainable production and improvement”, the FAIR FM project superimposes this “collective production” over the act of curating content for the radio station and its programming. Curation in this context is altered, under the same conditions that enable open-source in media programming and production. Imagining for a moment that all products of art culture and the ‘art world’ are open-source, the code of the artist-in-culture, that of the curator-in-art or the viewer-in-art culture, we as participants in this world collectively, processually, and sustainably produce and improve these programs.  It is simply a matter of selection, or actually election, picking and choosing.

As the artist, it seems as though we are always enduring processes of selection.  It is our compositional nature that perhaps requires us to select parts of our lives consisting of parts of others lives and compose these, exhibit or present these in a way that allows other others to see them as part of a different collection.  It is the act of continuous collection and the proximity between individuals that is exposed through the components of the collection, as Alÿs is exhibiting, in part, through his curatorialesque project “Fabiola”.  For Kousth, it is the otherness, in its unmentionable form, that is collated through his exhibition-as-art-as-exhibition.