fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 10: post-apocalyptic partying with Juan, Selfies & Sandro, Radio Tropiezo

This month’s episode is a conversation with Juan, Selfies and Sandro from Radio Tropiezo, that is part of the collective Cráter Invertido [Instagram] in Mexico City. Radio Tropiezo is involved in the lumbung radio/Station of Commons network and we met recently in Berlin during the Miss Read Berlin Art Book Festival & Fair, 22–24 September at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Selfies and Sandro, who are also part of the DJ collective Chakanais [Soundcloud], and Juan DJ’d the opening party of the 3-day event in HKW’s restaurant and bar.

Our conversation touches on the post-apocalyptic party culture of Mexico city and features excerpts of their sets — Selfies and Sandro spinning cumbia and Juan playing high energy Italo disco and house. Many thanks to Eddie from Station of Commons for these recordings.

fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 9: Κρατήρας with Jitsa Kon

Demonstrators hold a banner at the “Womens Strike”, Athens, International Womens Day, 8 March 2023.

This episode features and interview with Athens-based choreographer Jitsa Kon [Instagram] recorded in March with Anastasia Diavasti, artist and founder of the feminist platform NTIZEZA [Instagram]. We discuss the durational dance-research practice Κρατήρας (Crater), initiated by choreographers Vitoria Kotsalou [Facebook] and Michael Kliën. I first encountered Κρατήρας in front of the Olympia Municipal Music Theatre Maria Callas which was then being occupied by students [Instagram] protesting policy changes that devalued their education and thus professional standing and opportunities. Interspersed throughout the podcast are recordings made during the march marking International Womens Day, 8 March in Athens and a performance by “Chrishanti and friend” recorded outside Rex Theatre, also in central Athens, and that was also being occupied [Instagram].

This episode was made possible by Onassis AiR.

fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 7: bioluminescence mix

An hour-long mix made for an installation by Jeanne Berbinau Aubry. Made live with Pioneer’s rekordbox software and DDJ–FLX4 controller, this mix is a record of the so-called “vapor rave” I’ve been playing lately.

Tracklist
01 Sinistarr & Stingray – “Untitled”
02 JLin & Zora Jones – “Dark Matter”
03 Hyph11E – “Barnacles (Kode9 Remix)”
04 Siu Mata – “Ngalah Oreyo x UMOJA – GALA GALA (Siu Mata Edit)”
05 DJ Marfox – “Lucky Punch”
06 Hyroglifics & Sinistarr – “BS6”
07 Ikonika – “Energy”
08 Loraine James – “Let’s Go”
09 EQ Why & Traxman – “Dsc”
10 NET GALA – “Reclaim It (ZULI’s Shifting Weight at the Club remix)”
11 Ayesha – “Downpour”
12 Amor Satyr – “Rebola”
13 Black Rave Culture – “Sub Poppin”
14 EL PLVYBXY – “A Pulmon”
15 JLin – “Auto Pilot”
16 Gant-Man – “Distorted Sensory (Kode9 Remix)”
17 RP Boo – “Off Da Hook”
18 Siu Mata & Amor Satyr – “Acidez”
19 Ayesha – “Dark Matter”
20 Hyroglifics & Sinistarr – “Turn Up”
21 JLin – “Connect the Dots”
22 Ziúr – “Collar Bone”
23 Sinistarr – “Nonlinear Threat”
24 Kode9 – “The Jackpot”

fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 6: “Four Cees and a Ka”, in conversation with Rosa de Graaf

LIVE RADIO RECORDING IN PROCESS FEEL WELCOME TO SIT & ENJOY (For this reason the sound works in this exhibition are currently switched off)

Rosa de Graaf is curator at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam. Recorded in May 2023, our conversation was instigated as a live broadcast at the Jan van Eyck Academie Maastricht, where fugitive radio is currently in residence. We address the thematics “Community”, “The Contemporary”, “Conviviality”, “The Curatorial” and “Karaoke” with reference to radio in exhibition practices. We touch on the work of artists Anna Witt and Ayeshah Hameed who have recently exhibited at Melly. This episode also includes audio excerpts from Anna Witt’s Soft Destructions (2023) video below and an episode of Ayesha Hameed’s podcast “Brown Atlantis Radio featuring Ananya Jahanara Kabir”, recorded at Melly in 2022. The main image lifted from Ayesha Hameed’s Instagram, taken during her broadcast at Melly,

fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 4: NightShift, “Creative Labour”

A group of people with their backs to the camera are crowded around a shopfront entrance on a chilly night.

“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.

Foto: Maud van den Beuken

fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 3: “techno samba” launch Mixxx

silhouette image of a beach bar “Barraca de Falvio“. A shack on a beach flanked by two makeshift flag poles from which fly numerous banners.

This mix announces fugitive productions’ techno samba release on Bandcamp, four drum tracks made over two visits to Brazil during two presidential elections (2018 and 2022). Made with Mixxx free and open source DJ software and a Numark DJ2GO2 Touch, this mix proposes a way to work with these rhythms by looping, filtering and slip-phasing beats. It’s certainly repetitive! At times minimal, occasionally “asymmetrical” and at best hypnotic with a few jump cuts to keep listeners on their toes. May not be suitable for driving. Try dancing?

–
fugitive radio rádio em fuga in Brazil 2022 was supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

fugitive frequency, season 3, episode 2: “speakeasy”

A view from above of a studio space in the Jan van Eyck Academie. A group of people sit along the permeter walls and watch a figure operating equipment set on a central table. In the foreground are the legs of a figure dangling over a loft from which the image was taken.

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!

fugitive frequency, season 2, episode 12: Rádio Santos Dumont

Rádio Santos Dumont mise-en-scéne. A white steel gate is in the foreground of a street scene, framing the base of a rounded building. A group of are gathered on plastic chairs an tables in front of a shopfront. A Row of motorcycles is to the left and a white ‘Kombi’ van to their right. The asphalt is wet with rain.

Foto: Gabriel Carnelós 2022

A conversation with Toronto-based radio artist Andrew O’Connor [Instagram] and Todd Lanier Lester one of the founders of Lanchonete.org, an urban research and artist project based around a neighbourhood lunch counter in Conjunto Santos Dumont in central São Paulo.

Late in September 2022, Andrew installed a site-specific radio artwork in the laneway of Conjunto Santos Dumont, featuring a series of interviews he conducted with residents in collaboration with architect, urbanist and interpreter Gabi Ushida.

On the first weekend of October we collaborated on “Rádio Santos Dumont” a day of workshops, events and performances. We were joined by Merien Rodrigues of Itinero Grapho [Instagram] who hosts workshops in a mobile printmaking studio that unpacks from her Kombi van. Also on board was journalist Amber Cortes and illustrator Carl Nelson who had both traveled from the US to be in Brazil during the presidential elections (2 October). Local musicians Gabriel Edé [Instagram] and Vitor Wutzki [Instagram] contributed a very successful songwriting workshop. Carol Godefroid [Instagram] and Gabriel Carnelós [Instagram] provided live translations and photo-documentation, and their voices feature in this episode alongside those of Francisco Josepha de Castro AKA Chico and Nadija.

Woven through this episode are excerpts from Andrew O’Connor’s radio installation and edits of a recording of São Paulo-based musician Felinto [Bandcamp] whose performance closed the first day of the event.

Special mention must go to the people of Conjunto Santos Dumont who welcomed us: notably Liduina whose fruit shop was a base for our activities and Tarcisio, whose bar is the base for Lanchonete.org.

fugitive radio rádio em fuga in Brazil 2022 is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

fugitive frequency, season 2, episode 11: Coletivo Digital “make open source great again!”

a view of the entrance of coletivo digital in São Paulo. From a distance, four people stand in front of a shop front window. A sign above them reads ‘Coletivo Digital’ and is partially obscured by overhangin trees. A mural with a leaf design is painted on he adjascent wall.

A conversation with Beá Tibiriçá, Wilken Sanches and Hernani Dimantas, the founders of Coletivo Digital [Instagram], an organisation who have been developing software livre, digital integration and open culture in São Paulo for around 20 years. We met on 12 October (a holiday for o dia de nossa senhora aparecida) at Coletivo Digital’s space in the Pinheiros neighbourhood, which serves as a gallery, performance venue and also houses a recording studio that runs on free and open source software. The podcast features the song ‘Canção tem samba’, by Trilha Sonora, which was recorded here.

Our conversation, with translations and contributions by Wagner Miranda [Instagram] occurred after the first presidential elections on 2 October which were inconclusive. A second run-off election had been announced for October 30 and when we met the collective were actively campaigning ‘for democracy’.

Mentioned in our conversation are: Free Software Foundation, Legislation Marco Civil da Internet and LGPD – data protection law Brasil.

A published report of a remarkable project, Redes e Ruas, realised by Coletivo Digital in 2015 can be accessed here.

Many thanks to Merien Rodrigues and Thiago Esperandio for making this recording possible.

fugitive radio rádio em fuga in Brazil 2022 is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

fugitive frequency, season 2, episode 7: lumbung in the air

A street parade through the streets of Kassel. A photographer dressed in black is in the foreground, their back turned towards us.

lumbung in the “air” (a pun on the Bahasa Indonesia word for water) is an anachronistic mix-tape of musical moments recorded during the opening days of documenta fifteen in Kassel Germany, 15 –20 June 2022.

Curated by the Jakarta-based collective ruangrupa, documenta fifteen is concerned with lumbung, the Indonesian word for a communal rice-barn where surplus rice is stored for the benefit of the community. Lumbung was adopted as a practice by the documenta organisers pursuing alternative economies of collectivity, shared resource building and equitable distribution. fugitive radio has become part of the lumbung ekosistem through the lumbung radio / station of commons platform.

The podcast features in order of appearance (Instagram links):
Agus Nur Amal PMTOH
Gudskul participants
Imane Zoubai and members of LE 18
Rampak Genteng organised by Jatiwangi art Factory for New Rural Agenda
Black Quantum Futurism
La Intermundial Holobiente
Nhà Sàn Collective
Thy Lab
Thierry Geoffroy AKA Colonel
Protesters and performers at the ‘Rally Against Defamation – Solidarity with Ruangrupa’, 18 June
Ghetto Biennale with Robert N Peyre, Jean Louis Huhta AKA Dungeon Acid and Jean Claude Saintilus
Irreversible Entanglements
Performers at Fondation Festival sur le Niger’s Maaya Bulon and Tea Ceremony, 18 June