Posted by: Justin Grotelueschen on May 20, 2005 02:16 AM | Comments (0)

Just over a week before the big weekend, and I'm thinking back to my last visit to Toronto and how the experience changed me. Inspirational, yes, no doubt. Not just the audio and the ideas that came out at the conference. Yes, being in the presence of so many like minds is, if nothing else, reassuring. I came back to the states in May 2003 with plenty of unbridled energy to put toward something, so I created a new radio show. I may have had no idea what I was doing, or maybe I did (still plenty of evidence of either/or at www.bookofsfx.org), but it didn't matter -- radio is the medium where experimentation initially was the norm, and still should be the norm. I frequently make a mental reference to a presentation that weekend from Anna Friz, who fortunately is not only attending the conference this year, but will be presenting, about a microradio project she undertook where she would broadcast random wonders at various points in Toronto at random times late in the evening, probably co-opting some (unworthy) corporate broadcast signal, knowing she was only reaching a few (most likely confused) ears at a time. And being OK with that. (Anna -- sorry for butchering your reality -- my memory of your presentation is not what it should be, but I conveyed the essence, hopefully.)

The barrier to entry in radio has always been low and, as is often the case with a new medium once the initial buzz wears off, not enough people have taken advantage of it recently. And now with podcasting and other forms of Internet broadcasting, the barriers to getting exciting, compelling content out there are even lower. Conferences such as these prove the power of the medium is in the minds of those who simply take the time to present their ideas, and that prove there are still plenty of ideas to tap in to, many ideas to take audio form and to be broadcast out there, and many imaginations to be sparked by hearing those broadcasts. I'm getting giddy thinking about how my imagination is going to be sparked again. Just wait until next week.

More from Deep Wireless 2005 :
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