hi everybody,

[in brief: this is not a press release, but an open invite to join the
encoder loop on the 23rd of may]

soon we are heading for zurich and then lucern. the VIPER festival invited
convex tv. to host saturday the 23rd of May in the variete and we woulld
like to abuse the hospitality of our metahosts by dedicating this day
(besides other topics) to the unpredictable adrenalin rushes of encoder
bliss and subsonic feedback loops. find a detailed programme downstairs.
for the later afternoon we are planning to extend the VIPER location by an
encoder loop. 

i will update the page soon at:
http://www.viper.ch/98/audiobar

>>>>WHAT IS HAPPENING<<<<

most of Saturday will be locally bound in lucern. we will serve cakes and
coffee, the convex tv. archive is on display and we are engaging in social
networking. as i said: very much detached from the world, there might be
video streaming (CCTV) all throughout the event, i don't know. but around
18.00 CET (adjust your local time zones) we will open up to IRC and audio
streaming when focussing on "infotainment and autoarousal" - independent
media/culture productions always had a very ill-defined relationship to
*the audience*. when entering the field of networked cultural production
that *audience* becomes even more vacant. in lucern at viper we will be
talking/working with kombirama (recently renamed to K300) from zurich and
other initiatives in the area, as well as some international guests from
london and montreal. to make an empirical point about the dispersed and
off-centre audience/production in networks we want to estabish the encoder
loop later in the evening. whatever audience means in this context,
discussion and exchange of work seem to find new pathways which are in a
way closer to community based media work, where the distinction between
producer and audience seems somewhat arbitrary; of course: xchange is a
very good example for such a set up. and in order to exercise this topic we
thought an extension of this panel space into an audio loop would be a
fertile exercise.

>15-18	audio-bar, convex tv. at VIPER
>18-20	Talkshow (Infotainment and Autoarousal)
>20-21	audio-bar extended: 
>       synchronised with backspace, London and ozone, Riga
>21-	audio-bar extended II, DJ versus webcasting

>>>>HOW CAN WE JOIN / INTERVENE / SABOTAGE<<<<

at the moment we decided to set up two ways on intervention:

1. 18-20CET : IRC THROUGHOUT THE DEBATE : #convex
there will be a big screen projection of the chat room #convex on the wall
while we are talking self indulged in lucern. the questions, suggestions,
opinions and noise generated in the chat forum will be brought into the
room via a simple speech generator and the local PA. at this point we are
streaming audio and everybody can feedback on a low bandwidth option.
people will be able to hear and/or see the debate and intervene on IRC.

2. 20-21CET : ENCODER LOOP THROUGHOUT THE AUDIO BAR EXTENDED
at this stage we arranged with backspace and e-lab (ozone) to start a
simple encoder loop where our stream will be picked up by backspace,
backspace will be picked up by ozone and we will pick up ozone again to
stream back into the loop. towards the end of the panel, we will open the
audio loop on the local PA and move the VIPER space away from the centre
into the loop.

backspace and e-lab will be gathering in their natural habitats with a few
guests and pick up the topics where they have been broken off when opening
the audio loop. throughout the evening we are hoping to invite more and
more encoders to join in and open the loop up to as many participants as
possible. so far lo-res Wien & r a d i o q u a l i a  Adelaide want to join
in later in the day. we hope more will follow.

we decided to start with only three to develop a sound base to operate
from. it is clear that the loop will eventually lead to disaster - but that
it very much anticipated and will definately be accompanied by stunning
sound effects...

>>>>WHAT DO I NEED TO JOIN THE LOOP<<<<

technically speaking you need to be able to pick up the stream and encode
it after mixing your sound source into the stream. in ASCII that would look
like this:

incoming stream ---> receiver ---> mixer <--- audio input(micro/desk)
                                    / \
                                   /   \
           internal sound system </     \> encoder ---> next station

it is a bit tricky to find the right volume levels for the loop. the setup
is basically a potent feedback loop - so we need to do constant fine
adjustment. plus: there will be a 4 second delay at any point : the more
join, the more patience would be required (if...).

>>>>COORDINATION<<<<

who wants to join in, please mail us. for the actual event it would be good
if there would be one person who has the knowledge and experience to
dedicate themselves to the fine tuning and management / maintenance of the
loop. as for convex tv.: stefan schreck woudl have the know-how and
experience to manage the lucern end (ses@xxxxxxxxxxx - but i haen't asked
him yet.../ well, i have now: hi stefan). it would be important to
communicate via IRC while extending and tuning the loop. i would suggest
another chat room:
#admintv

---

please get back to us, or post suggestions on xchange for 'how to' and 'why
not try' are also very welcomed!

cheers,

 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
(a) (c) (o) (u) (s) (t) (i) (c) ( ) (s) (p) (a) (c) (e)
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
information&comunication channel | for net.broadcasters
http://xchange.re-lab.net  (Xchange)  net.audio network
xchange search/webarchive: http://xchange.re-lab.net/a/