T.R.: VOL. 6: RADIUS

[wpsgallery]

Jeff Kolar will discuss his ongoing curatorial project Radius, an experimental radio broadcast platform based in Chicago, IL, USA. Radius features a new project monthly with statements by artists who use radio as a primary element in their work. Radius provides artists with live and experimental formats in radio programming. The goal is to support work that engages the tonal and public spaces of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The lecture will focus on two of Radius’ series: RANGE (2012) and GRIDS (2014).

Local, Distant, Fringe is a three-part, location-based series of radio transmissions that explores the phenomenon of signal strength. The series seeks to break, bend, and highlight the economic, political, and technical dimensions of the electromagnetic spectrum. RANGE seeks to challenge these issues of signal accessibility, and question radio’s role as a distribution tool. Commissioned artists include Emilie Mouchous & Andrea-Jane Cornell, Damon Loren Baker, and Rob Ray.

Grids consists of four mobile commissioned radio broadcasts at four different Chicago geographical locations throughout the 2014 calendar year. The transmissions occur at either working or now defunct electrical production or distribution centers. GRIDS is interested in how energy is propagated, what the distance of that propagation is, and what it means to be a node in the networked grid. Commissioned artists include Radio Aktiv, Ethan Rose, Kristen Roos, and Amanda Gutiérrez.

Jeff Kolar is a sound artist and curator working in Chicago, USA. His work, described as “speaker-shredding” (Half Letter Press) and “wonderfully strange” (John Corbett), includes cross-platform collaboration, low-powered radio, and live performance. His work often activates sound in unconventional, temporary, and ephemeral ways using appropriation and remix as a critical practice. Jeff is a free103point9 Transmission Artist, and also the director ofRadius, an experimental radio broadcast platform.

His work has been released on Panospria (CA), HAK Lo-Fi Record (FR), free103point9 (US), and has appeared in compilations by Furthernoise.org (AU), iFAR (UK), and Sonic Circuits (US). His video work was published in the DVD journal ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art. He presents work at festivals, radio programs, exhibitions, and performance venues which recently include the New Museum, CTM Festival for Adventurous Music, KUNSTRADIO, and The Kitchen.