Presentations by Nazir Fadzilah of SVARA art journal and Tintabudi Bookshop (Kuala Lumpur), Priya Jay of Future Commons and STUART and Beatrix Pang of Zine Coop and Small Tune Press (Hong Kong). The panel was organised by Rose Nordin of STUART and Rabbits Road Press (London) and hosted by PrintRoom (Rotterdam).
With: antoine lefebvre editions /Art Zines / Hon Books (Paris), Artists in Solidarity (Rotterdam), Beatrix Pang/ Zine Coop/ Small tune press (Hong Kong), Bebebooks (Gent), Bur-Rose (The Hague), Colorama (Berlin), Eleanor Vonne Brown / The Nose (Walton on the Naze), F.G.A.(Rotterdam), Futura Resistenza (Rotterdam/Brussels), Gloria Glitzer (Berlin), Good Neighbour (Amsterdam), Heiba Lamara /OOMK (London), Jap Sam Books (Prinsenbeek), Jesse Presse (Amsterdam), Knust (Nijmegen), Limestone Books (Maastricht), Lu Lin / Not just a collective (Arnhem), Mono Rhetoric (The Hague), Nazir Fadzilah/ SVARA art journal/ Tintabudi Bookshop (Kuala Lumpur), Onomatopee (Eindhoven), Other Forms Berlin/Chicago, Pei-Ying Lin (Taiwan/Eindhoven), PrintRoom (Rotterdam), Roots to Fruits (Arnhem), Rose Nordin / STUART/Rabbits Road Press (London), Sarmad Magazine (Rotterdam), Stefanie Leinhos (Leipzig), Tender Hand Press (Glasgow), Teuntje Fleur (Schiedam), The Eriskay Connection (Breda), This was a project… (Rotterdam), Unformed Informed (Rotterdam), Valiz (Amsterdam) and more.
Listen back to the broadcast on Movement Radio. – Anastasia Diavasti of NTIZEZA [Instagram] and Sumugan Sivanesan of fugitive radio planned to research around a common interest in Cassie Thornton’s book The Hologram (2020) and their different approaches to (performative) radio. Spurred on by a timely meeting with Cassie when she was laid over in Athens in March, the duo set about working intuitively. They made recordings at the recent student occupations at Olympia Theatre [Instagram] and Rex Theatre [Instagram], visited the Vio.Me workers co-op in Thessaloniki and primed themselves for telepathy.
For Onassis AiR Open Day #6 they will host a live broadcast to play out their recordings and interviews, and reflect on the themes that emerge with invited guests. These include: dance, solidarity, SF, teargas and cats. It will combine spaces at Onassis AiR, Athens, with spaces at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht.
“Creative Labour” is the first audio fanzine documenting NightShift, an all night publishing-performance-happening occurring over March 2-3, 2023, at Limestone Books in Maastricht [Instagram] and made in collaboration with Rose Nordin. We streamed live for six hours straight on πnode and {openradio}.
In order of appearance “Creative Labour” features the voices of: Riar Rizaldi whose film Becquerel (2021) screened before the broadcast, Maud van den Beuken who gives a live audio description followed by Merien Rodrigûes (São Paulo) [Instagram] and Anastasia Diavasti (Athens) [Instagram] who dialed in their audio descriptions. Chen Jehn, one of the proprietors of Limestone Books discusses their ideas for the shop with prompts from book artist Michiel Romme and Kim David Bots, who also contributed live improvised music. There is a brief excerpt from a pre-recorded interview with Jo Frenken who established the print studio at the Jan Van Eyck Academie and Rose Nordin gets in the last (delirious) word. Wen Hsuan Chang’s audio piece Paper Ripping Paper can be heard in the background, alongside the music of the Commodores.
NightShift at Limestone Books, Thursday March 2, 11pm – Friday March 3, 6am. Broadcasting live from midnight on http://p-node.org.
Set your alarm clocks! Maastricht art book store Limestone Books [Instagram] opens for 24 hours on the first Thursday of each month. On March 2 it will be joined by Rose Nordin and fugitive radio [Instagram], installing a print salon, radio studio and screening room for the NightShift.
At 11pm we will watch Riar Rizaldi’s short film, Becquerel (2021), and host a Q&A with the director. Between midnight and 6am (March 3) we will collectively design and print a zine, Transcription from the night waves, for participants to take home at dawn. Simultaneously we will broadcast a live durational “audio fanzine” on http://p-node.org.
For the insomniacs, Maud van den Beuken [Instagram] will entrance us with audio descriptions as Kim David Bots [Instagram] prompts improvised musical interludes. Guests are invited to generate written transcriptions (in any language) and interpretive illustrations to be printed with a Gestetner, typewriter and drawing tools. Songs, chatter, recordings, musical objects and other sound-making matters are all welcome contributions to the radio.
We propose that voices from far and wide punctuate the night air. We encourage callers from local farms, South East Asian book stores and North American mountains to summon their surroundings in a communal dream to be documented and interpreted in print and across networks. Please send your texts and voice messages via WhatsApp: +49 1525 7610023.
Feel free to bring along sleeping bags, pillows, pyjamas, hot water bottles and whatever else you are comfortable to work in. Tea, coffee and nibbles will be provided.
This month’s episode is an (amended) audio document and re-broadcast of a live “speakeasy” event fugitive radio hosted at the Jan van Eyck Academie on a snowy friday evening, January 20. It was also the first in a series of monthly live broadcasts fugitive radio is producing on πnode, a decentralized radio infrastructure streams online and broadcasts on DAB in Mulhouse and Paris. It featured contributions from Jan van Eyck artists-in-residence, in order of appearance [Instagram]: Cristina Flores, AZOOR, Zahra Malkani, Kim David Bots, Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano, Alicja Wysocka and Arpita Akhanda. Foto: Dayna Casey.
The speakeasy was convened as a space for experimentation, spontaneity and improvisation, although it ended being a tightly packed schedule that ran a little over time. A theme of “songs” emerged in the days beforehand, but was not a requirement. The event was broadcast live with the proviso that it would only be documented internally and not be archived online. In the following days, all participants agreed to re-broadcast and upload with some minor amendments to account for time restrictions and sound quality. Many thanks to all who participated, attended and tuned in!
During its time at Jan van Eyck Academie fugitive radio will host a monthly “speakeasy”, as a testing ground for emergent radiophonic formats. These might include sound art, music, poetics, conversation pieces and other forms yet to be discovered and named. fugitive radio seeks to make a space for experimentation, spontaneity and improvisation.
In the coming months the speakeasy will broadcast live at irregular times and from different geographic locations, but always online at TTnode, a decentralised network of servers, antennae and DAB+ (digitial audio broadcasting) boxes scattered around France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The inaugural speakeasy will occur on Friday 20 January 2023 from studio 111 at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht NL. You’re welcome to join from 17.00 and we will go live between 18.00–19.00.
fugitive radio attended the “Techno-Cul-de-Sac” worksession, November 20–25, 2022, organised by Constant in Brussels. Co-convened by members Martino Morandi and Peter Westenberg it proposed a collective encounter with Brussels via an investigation of zoning, infrastructure, and technology, bringing together artists, architects, and urban researchers. While the worksession was not about radio per se, radio was the medium that underpinned our activities, concluding as a live “alleycasting” broadcast assisted by Radio Panik and p-node.org. My report for MARCH, “Techno On the Radio” is here. Notably, materials used are licensed with Copyleft 2022 Constant: you may copy, distribute, and modify this material according to the terms of the Collective Conditions for Re-Use (CC4r) 1.0.
rádio contra o trabalho do Instituto Procomum transmitir ao vivo quinta-feira 21.10, entre 18-20horas!
rádio contra o trabalho convenes a working group at Instituto Procomum, Santos, São Paulo. Over three consecutive evenings we will collectively explore streaming audio/radio using free, open source or otherwise accessible tools.
I very much appreciate Gustavo, Fabio, Igor, Almir, Fernando and Danielo joining on a chilly rainy evening alongside Calu, our remarkable interpreter.
I first came to Procomum almost exactly four years ago, where I initiated ‘almoço contra o trabalho’ as part of the organisations LabXSantos artist residency program, November 2018. Notably this was right after the presidential election. Here, I was luck enough to meet and collaborate with the very talented Diego Andrade [Instagram] and Victor Sousa [Instagram]. Diego is currently off the radar, nevertheless it was great to reconnect with Victor.
As expected, there have been some technical hiccups. Initially, my laptop went down and refused to reboot. After an anxious afternoon trouble shooting online and visiting a Mac repair agent in Santos, it seems that the problem was with the power source at Procomum. Then as Victor and I attempted to set up a podcast studio computer we were unable to connect to the internet due to a modem problem. ‘This is how it is in the third world’ quipped Victor, shrugging it off. As a work around I sought out free and accessible audio streaming tools that could work on Android devices. As expected, I stumbled on incompatibility issues between apps and platforms. Certainly, this is an issue that fugitive radio emphasises with its interest in radio as a social practice with experimental technology. Nevertheless it remains frustrating! While Gustavo located another modem to bring our computer online, the group decided to investigate Twitch as a popular and accessible streaming tool that could be used during the upcoming Virada Cultural weekend of events in Santos, 22–23 Outubro.
I was taken by the term gambiarra that Danielo used to describe his practice, which I understand as a kind of hacking, adhoc and improvised approach to getting things done and reminds me of what Suva Das described to me asjugaad technology in India. According to artist Giuliano Obici in Gambioluthiery: Hacking and DIY in Brazil [PDF], gambiarra has a distinctly Brazilian twist, related to notions of antropofago and carnevale; reversing “the order of artifacts, serving as a carnivalization of technique, technology and design.” Obici is concerned with musical instruments and sound art practices, proposing that his: “Gambioluthiery reinforces connections between sound and its materiality as well as the paradoxical gaps between advantage and limitations that techno-consumption produces globally.”
Rádio Santos Dumont launched on Saturday 17 September 2022. Andrew O’Conner installed FM transmitters located at three different stations along the internal roadway, including in Tarcisio’s bar and Liduina’s fruit and vegetable shop. These are broadcasting interviews Andrew had recorded with residents some months earlier with Gabi Ushida, effectively collecting oral histories of this particular enclave in the megalopolis of São Paulo. Andrew and Todd Lanier Lester from Lanchonte.org had invited Marina and Fernanda of Publication Studio to run a poster-making workshop using stamps to engage with local children. The night before I’d assisted Liduina and her daughter Rosa in making trays of ‘gnocchi’ (made with flour, milk, salt and oil, but not potatoes!).
Friends of Lanchonete.org came by during the afternoon, including Carol Godefroid who took photographs and her son Gabriel Carnelós who will also join our upcoming event on October 1 & 2. Todd and I have been out talking to residents and putting up posters promoting the event that alongside Andrew’s radio installation also features: Itinero Grapho’s Kombi printing press, a DIY/DWO percussion instrument making workshop with New York-based documentary film and radio maker Amber Cortes, a songwriting workshop with musicians Gabriel Edé and Vitor Wutzi from São Paulo and BYO t-shirt screen printing that I’m learning via trial and error and will manage on the day with illustrator and animator Carl Nelson, who will also be arriving from New York. There will be music — I’m working on ketchupe dj — and we also hope to make some more recordings on the day around these different activities.
I’ve also been thinking about how this radio intervention — our festa do rádio – is a critical urban practice. There has been some discussion around lumbung radio how online radio occupies and reclaims digital space, with minimal bandwidth and audio formats that don’t demand the same kind of attention as (audio)visual media. fugitive radio often claims that these days ‘everyone has a podcast but who is listening?’. The notion that ‘noone is listening’ shifts fugitive radio’s emphasis on radio making as a social practice with technology rather than as a production task. fugitive radio aligns with Helsinki Open Waves in its interest in migrant voices and with collaborators such as {openradio} and the aforementioned lumbung radio in emphasising open content and using free and open source tools. As such, fugitive radio may not make what by convention constitutes ‘well-produced’ radio content, but rather has made a political decision to work with certain people and technologies. Indeed community-based media in itself could be understood as a critique of corporate media, and especially media monopolies such as Grupo Globo in Brazil.
So how do such ideas arrive in Conjuntos Santos Dumont, where I have only a rudimentary grasp of the language; where I have been introduced to only a handful of people who may not have any interest in or access to such technologies? What is fugitive radio doing here?
Certainly fugitive radio has had an interest in Brazil since it began, inspired by the ‘barraca’ beach bars in Rio and protest sound systems that I experienced when I was here during the last presidential election in 2018. It also makes reference to a recent independent feminist server movement emerging out of Latin America that includes vedetas in São Paulo. Lanchonete.org provides an (urban) art context that fugitive radio has entered into and is continuing its practices that include: field recordings, riddim production, conducting interviews and experimenting with live broadcast formats (such as rádio caminho)… and now simple simple silk screen printing. But what does this mean for the residents of Conjuntos Santos Dumont?
Radio Santos Dumont installs a novel radio infrastructure in the lane that threads through the buildings. While Andrew has interviewed locals and has presented a version of what local radio can do, I wonder how they might also access it; perhaps initially as listeners and also as participants/producers? In short, to make community radio first you need a community…don’t you? So it is striking that none of us involved in initiating Radio Santos Dumont actually live there — indeed we are by-and-large gringos, not even from São Paulo. So is Radio Santos Dumont for the (arts) community who support Lanchonete.org? Certainly it is employing locals (both from the conjunto and the city more broadly), so it might pique some interest in a context where funding for experimental social practices is scarce. So then, will a community of sorts emerge from the task of producing the event?
I am struck by our efforts to engage residents with our radio intervention. After seeing the Rádio Santos Dumont design conceived by Todd and finalised by Carl and Thiago Correia Gonçalves, I was compelled to make a silk screen, convinced that if I would want it on a t-shirt, so would others. (I recall Todd mentioning that he thought t-shirts might promote a sense of identity for residents, and that differs from its lingering reputation for drug traffic.) Furthermore, Todd printed off a stack of handbills that I am now giving to people I meet in the elevator at 14 Bis. I am renting out a ‘kitchenete’ in this tallest building of the enclave, overlooking the internal laneway — which I’m assured is a quintessential São Paulo experience.
Finally, I must mention the Presidential Elections on October 2, which is arguably the reason so many of us gringos are convening in Conjunto Santos Dumont — to get a sense of what it is like on the ground and to experience what happens during this historical moment. Brazilians are polarised by the presidential candidates, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and a former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and friends here say they are anxious about the consequences of the election. From what I’ve seen, Conjunto Santos Dumont is no different. While we have not made the elections the focus of Rádio Santos Dumont, it will invariably set the context in which it occurs.