I can't think of many more relaxing journeys for the ear and the soul than spending a weekend with experimental transmissions overwhelming my good senses. But the amazingness of this weekend and this conference is/was the people -- old friends and new, from different professional levels and backgrounds, coming together to share a common passion. This conference is just big enough to have a shot to talk with almost every person in attendance, including the presenters, even though the weekend goes by so quickly. To hear that about half of the paid conference attendees are from the states is good news to me, that enough people know about it to make the experience rich but not too many to make the conference zoo-crazy. The diversity of opinion and perspective within this crowd is something I definitely appreciate, even if we are all radio geeks in our own rights.

So yes, great feelings abound in retrospect, and the one I treasure most is this energy that I'll undoubtedly carry with me for months (hopefully longer). After my first RWB I started a radio show that I feel I never would have started otherwise, using ideas I scribbled down as the last conference sessions wore down and in restaurants during the drive home. In 2005 I thought more about the sonic possibilities in some of the pieces I heard during the conference and translated those thoughts to music I was working on. This year ... we'll see, but I'll let myself be surprised.

And I had a lot of fun doing this blog with Mr. Nick, and maybe we'll be back online here again in future days.

That's it for me, but here's a conference breakdown from Eric Leonardson to shed a few more shades of light.

Godspeed,
JustinG

Secondly, I'd like to thank Justin and Nick for providing such great coverage of the weekend from the inside. They were obviously enjoying themselves but did not take their work lightly.

We have not changed the conference-within-a-festival format since the first conference back in 2003 when it was called Transmission sans Frontieres: two nights of performances and two days of keynote speakers, panels and with the last two year, lots of break-out sessions. We think we've found a formula that works for both artists looking to find out more about radio and radio producers looking to find out more about sound. We also want to be able to provide as many opportunities as possible for radio/sound artists and independent producers to interact with each other so that they leave the festival more knowledgeable and more excited about the wonderful world of radio and transmission art.

It was a treat to see Chris Brookes connecting with Gabe Sawhney on his murmur project (I new this would be something that would work well in Newfoundland - so many stories, so many memories) and to see the remaining few who stuck it out til the end enjoying the discussions by TradeMark G. (burning man festival), Gabe Sawhney (murmur project) and Peter Courtemanche (Art's Birthday and other web-based art exchange projects) in that last panel - Insight to radio on-site.

We are always thankful for the comments we get back from the delegates that attend. This year is no exception. We use these comments to refine/adjust/retain where needed and of course to support our grant applications in order to maintain funding. Thanks to all of the conference delegates who filled out our questionnaire.

And last but not least we are extremely thankful to AIR (Associates of Independence in Radio) for providing 5 stipends to 5 AIR producers to attend the conference; to free103point9.org for broadcasting the entire weekend of activities on their web-radio and for CKLN radio for providing the means and the support to make this broadcast possible.

The difference of course, from year to year, is the content and the challenge of course is to be not just current but a little on the edge. Of course with anything that's experimental, some things we try work extremely well and other things not so well. That is the whole point of being experimental though - always try to be just beyond the cusp, just a little out of reach, and then to see what responses ensue. This year's responses were overwhelmingly positive. Many are still talking about Tetsuo's moving keynote session and in absolute awe over his performance. And many are already wanting to implement what they've learned from Chris Brookes' keynote and workshop sessions.

All in all Darren and I feel truly blessed to have created something that has meant so much to many people and buoyed by this to create another spectacular event next year. We have already confirmed Brandon LaBelle and rumour has it that Gregory Whitehead can't wait to return once again next year.

Stay tuned through our NAISA Sound Channel e-newsletter for information about more upcoming New Adventures in Sound Art's events, or by checking our web-site for updates (www.naisa.ca). Deep Wireless is again scheduled for the month of May with the conference weekend at the tail end - May 29-31, 2009.

See you next year!!

Nadene Thériault-Copeland
Managing Director
New Adventures in Sound Art
www.naisa.ca

A clip from "hand-waving play with airwaves" by Tetsuo Kogawa from justing on Vimeo.

On Sunday afternoon we had a recap of Saturday's class. I tested the transmitter I built (it didn't work -- I shorted out the battery), rebuilt it with Tetsuo's help (IT WORKED), and built another one. Then he taught us how to make antennas out of coaxial cable. Hot hand-waving coaxial-cable-scoring action.

Radio has always been a performance medium, but its value as its ability to connect people, cultures, as a form of communication and conversation has given it staying power. And the Internet came along and eclipsed radio in both regards. So naturally a radio art conference can't be without a little gloom and doom about radio as a viable medium for the transmission of art. If people aren't listening to radio anymore because conversations have moved to the Internet, does that mean the role of the radio artist has diminished -- does the disembodied voice, the voice from nowhere, go nowhere?

In the context of this conference, though, that's a liberating concept; radio conceptually can be separated as a form of communication from radio as an art form, and radio artists can concentrate on art, not making material suitable for all audiences. But I don't feel that separation is not entirely necessary, as maybe it's time to revisit radio for its other positive aspects: both to create art, and to think of 'community' and 'public' radio as community-builders for those who assemble to create it. Artists and creators flock to community radio because of the tangible aspects of their own community, a fine byproduct of making art.

But WILL THE KIDS LISTEN TO IT? An age-old question for the business end of radio, the argument of how to reach younger audiences that has been around since CBC and NPR and the public broadcasting networks have been around -- do they want hipper programming, do they want shorter and more digestible content? But even when disregarding art and thinking about the radio industry as a whole and it's need to tell stories and inform through 'the news', we're ignoring that people are inherently inquisitive individuals and will use the Internet and word of mouth and all possible channels to find content that is good. And just maybe young people will 'graduate' from iPods to radio at some point. If young people are still creating and seeking out sound art, they will find it, eventually.

Like Anna Friz said at the end of the discussion, "an unstable medium is almost the most interesting one", and radio artists can enjoy focusing on the experimentation and not the statistics. The audience has always been considered, although now it can be as it was originally considered, as seekers of the disembodied voice.

Clip from SPACE: THE VINYL FRONTIER by TradeMark G. from justing on Vimeo.

(I have clips from the Deep Wireless ensemble, too, but they're kind of dark and muffled -- you can check it here if you have desires.)

This kicked off our first not-all-that-tired night on the town, which we could enjoy briefly -- but a looming (and worthwhile) 9am session means it was not-all-that-insane (IE no fire, explosions, nudity, animals freed from the zoo -- the homeless guy who tried to climb in the back of our car at a stoplight doesn't count). Maybe next year?

Here's Justin and I with our brand-spanking new FM transmitters. If you're interested in building your own, you can follow Tetsuo's instructions online. It's surprisingly simpler than it looks on first glance.

Just be careful--one of our fellow workshop attendees got hot solder about half an inch from her eye. I don't recommend doing that.

As Justin already mentioned, if you hook up one of these transmitters to a radio tuned to the same frequency, you tune into Satan's radio station.

Mini-FM: making an FM transmitter and creating a feedback loop from justing on Vimeo.

At the end, if you can't hear it, he says "this is tomorrow's lecture". Classic.

Anyway, with USB cable in hand, I was able to hastily edit this conversation with the Absolute Value of Noise (aka Peter Courtemanche). Peter performed Somewhere A Voice Is Calling last night, and gave me a tour of some of the equipment he uses to reveal hidden sounds from the electromagnetic spectrum.

Take a listen.

Fascinated by narrative and where pieces go over time, Chris talked about the power of humans as a storytelling species ("it's our greatest strength"), and the duty of stories to imagine the future as fiction and recreate the past as art. Using stories to create a sense of place -- to "get a listener in the tent", as Outfront producer Steve Wadhams says -- Chris talked about the challenges of localizing his pieces, with more jargon, slang, and informal speech, and pulling that into a broader national conversation.

So here's the question of the morning: while sounds can be and are recorded, cataloged, broadcast and archived, do radio transmissions live forever? Or do they go up, out, only to be lost in the ether and stuck in the minds of those lucky enough to catch it? Chris relayed Marconi's thoughts, who said radio transmissions never really go away ... they hang around (more specifically, the transmissions about the Titanic sinking are trapped under the water, eventually to rise again). Your thoughts?

Chris undoubtedly saved some theoretical nuggets for the workshop that he's conducting this afternoon, for those lucky enough to get there. And we're trying to get by this morning without coffee, and I'm still without food, so I apologize if descriptions of the here and the now are too coarse. It's the conference way of life, but we'll try to not keep any of the good stuff from these pages.

Thirty-some deep listeners circled around a mock stage that showcased an impromptu stomping session and a composition for four performers who encircled the crowd. The perfomers fired right into Portraits in Sound 1 (interspersed by two pieces that aired in the conference room, Dogs Say What? by Marjorie Chan, and Requiem for a Boxer by Tristan Whiston), a radio play that took us inside the minds of those on stage and those in the sea. We were treated to silhouettes of squid and fish dancing on the ceiling, (kind of) seen below. That transitioned nicely into the spotlight of the night: a sound and video excursion by Anna Friz and Glenn Gear, an abstract look into the first ship to shore communications in the early 1900s. Transmitting to thirteen radios hanging above our heads, Anna used her voice, radio static, and processed sounds to accompany video splashes of the traversal of transmissions to new lands. The audio experiments encircled the room via Darren Copeland's 12-speaker audio system, and a separate audio track intermittently sprang forth from each speaker; this nontraditional setup almost dizzies the listener, pulling your attention all around room as you guess where the next sound will come from.

This whole weekend can be heard on free103point9. We as conference attendees are in the studio, in essence, watching and hearing the DJs keep the weekend rolling.

This first night (and the conference) has unfolded quickly, too quickly for us to really get into full-on conference mode. Since the conference will be more abbreviated than years past (only two days, 9a-5p), we'll have to stick our ears right in and get involved. Unfortunately I magically lost a cable somewhere across the border which enables me to upload original pics/audio/video to this site -- I'll hit up Mr. Nick or the local cabling shop for on of those cords in the near future for more multimedia action on these pages.

Comments are open for you to add your thoughts, if you were/are in attendance, and to pose your questions about the weekend.

(Past RWB performer Eric Leonardson will also be commenting on and recapping the weekend, if you need more insights into the proceedings.)

The annual Deep Wireless Radio Art compilation is a fine representation not only of what you'll experience at the RWB conference, but of how artists and producers are considering, utilizing, massaging, and expanding the radio spectrum as a tool for delivering mind-expanding audio transmissions in the current calendar year. Each of the four two-disc comps that precede this year's salvo cherry-pick different approaches to art on the radio: from soundscapes to documentaries, from music to words, from the real to the unreal. We invite you to explore the sonic surprises in this year's Deep Wireless comp, and to take a journey into year's past using the online archives (2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007). You could literally spend hours with what's available here, so if you can't muster the time to involve yourself with these archives now, bookmark this post and come back when you have a chance -- your ears will thank you later.

And as part of this month-long Deep Wireless celebration that is coming to a close, the excellent CBC storytelling experiment Outfront has commissioned four audio delights to further whet your appetite:

• Dogs Say What? by Marjorie Chan
• Requiem for a Boxer by Tristan Whiston
• Whole Heartiness by Eldad Tsabary
• The Ugliest Sound in the World (coming May 29th)

More info about the project here.

These blog pages are an experiment for us, and they can be an experiment for you, too. We’re interested in your experiences with radio and art. Follow along as the excitement builds and the RWB conference drops an exclamation point at the end of the Deep Wireless month, and during the conference you certainly can chime in (we'll open the comments when the festival starts and we're posting more regularly -- it's a spam issue -- yecch).

Having grown up on public radio long after those early days, it boggles my mind to hear stories like this. I imagine a strange audio universe completely unlike what you hear today. I mean, Joe Frank used to anchor All Things Considered for God's sake. Can you imagine Robert Siegal telling a deadpan story about his lover's unusual attraction to lions?

It's not that I don't like most of public radio, I really do. It's just that there's an important missing piece: a sense of playfulness and experimentation. That's why it was way past time for me to make it out to Radio Without Boundaries--especially after hearing Justin describe it in person. RWB is one of the few outposts for that experimentation (at least one that's easily accessible to a lot of Americans), and I can't wait to be challenged, confused, maybe a little upset. Because sometimes that's the only way to think differently about our own work.

My first Radio Without Boundaries came in 2003, while I was still in graduate school and had been living in the Boston area for less than a year. I had come east from the Midwest USA in part because of all the great radio being produced in New England, having spent the previous five years working in college, public, and community radio in Nebraska. Then working on a radio project at Harvard and researching radio festivals around the world, I happened on RWB and knew I had to find a way to get there. I talked Harvard into sending me that year, and I didn’t have to work hard to convince Ben Walker (who blogged RWB for Transom that year) that he should join.

We hopped in a car one dreary Friday morning in late May, and after ten-plus hours of wheeling (New York, as a state, turned out to be much bigger than I thought), with an extra chaotic half-hour of getting lost in Toronto tacked on for good measure (accidentally discarded directions, a suitcase that decided to break at the worst possible moment, jumping in and out of the car in the pouring rain), we arrived in time to have missed the conference check-in. Still not understanding the scope of the conference – How many people showed up here? WHO was here? Were they here for the same reasons as we were? – we finally made our way to our campus lodging to get fresh and head to a festival-related event at a downtown bar that night. Shimmying through a crowd at the entrance of a dark bar, we moved to the edge of a silent crowd transfixed on the players on the stage warming into a Radio-a-Mock, a mock radio show about a world gone amok. About twenty minutes into the performance, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face – I still didn’t know what I had gotten into, but I knew I had made the right choice to get myself into it. The rest of the night was a blur, as all transformative nights are – I remember Gregory Whitehead on stage leading the audience in a cult-like chant, chatting up Jim Metzner between acts, and falling in love during a vocal performance by Susanna Hood. When the lights came up to kill the muted glow in that small space almost two hours later, I remember the sense of comfort and place I felt. I already was enamored with RWB, and I hadn’t even been to a session yet.

As I settled into the routine for the rest of the weekend – meeting Nadene and the wonderful festival staff, engaging in the conference sessions, getting to know the fellow attendees and presenters, letting my eyes and ears gorge everything about the nightly performances, sucking in the energy of those Toronto nights – I was entertaining this cornucopia of feelings, ideas, inspirations that I never wanted to part with. I felt connected to our radio ancestors; RWB broke down barriers in my brain between what radio was and what it could be and was meant to be in my life, both as a creator and a listener. But conferences can’t go on forever, and I had to accept my reality and make my way back home. Begrudgingly packing myself into the tiny rental and the long trip back to Boston, I already knew then what I know now: I wasn’t leaving anything behind. My DNA had been altered. Not only will I forever in my life associate Canada and great radio -- perhaps a naive correlation as great radio can be made anywhere, but (hopefully) not an offensive one – but more importantly will associate my first RWB with my own “radio awakening”. Considering how important radio has been in my life so far, I can’t think of a much higher compliment.

Leading up to, during, and after the festival, I'll once again try my best to convey how it feels to be engrossed in this experience, and not just for the third time. It’s a new festival, a new time, and no doubt another awakening.