XCHANGE TEXT FOR AEF'98 CATALOGUE
Edition by Eric Kluitenberg
----------------------------------------------------

Welcome to Xchange...

Date: 02 Dec 97 13:50:41 UT
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Subject: Welcome to xchange

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(X)
(XCHANGE) MAILING LIST - information&communication channel 
 
for:

(x) announcements
about new audio/radio links & live-streams,
live-broadcasting time-tables, net.audio projects, events, etc.

(x) discussions
about radio development in the internet
information exchange and research on using different softwares
real-time broadcasting & audio archiving in the net

(x) publishing
the texts:
about net.audio/radio and not only, - poetry, short abstracts,
songs, pictures, proposals, suggestions, etc. are very welcome!)

(x) collaboration
with other co-mailinglists:
weekly-monthly editions (info about new audio & radio links 
(URLs + brief description), events, texts) will be published in 
other mailinglists and in Xchange web-site:

net.audio (Xchange) network
A C O U S T I C . S P A C E
<http://xchange.re-lab.net>

(x) for alternative non-commercial internet broadcasters and
individual audio content providers
(x) on exchange and linking-up of audio content within the net.space
(x) on development towards a net.audio network community


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ERIC KLUITENBERG
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Just a few notes from the 'editor'...

Xchange, the net.audio network, emerged from "Xchange on-air session", the 2nd new media festival in Riga "Art + Communication II", which was organised there by the E-Lab artist organisation from November 12 - 14, 1997. The festival featured presentations from artists, musicians, theorists and organisers from such diverse countries as Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Estonia, the United States (of America), the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and of course Latvia itself.

The festival was a very loose and free gathering of notably young people who were exploring the new possibilities of making live audio transmissions via the Internet, usually called net.casting. The program consisted of talks, lectures, discussions, concerts, jam sessions and even screenings. But what was really surprising about it, was that all three days were sent out to a tiny segment of the world, live for the entire duration of the event, reaching a micro-audience via the net, that could be dispersed across the globe.

Thus, even a coffee table conversation was transmitted to the very person the conversation was about... This funny incident gave a new meaning for me to the term 'intimate media', which signifies something outside of, rather than in opposition to, mainstream mass-media. Xchange is 'sovereign media' in the best sense of the word: It is completely useless and has no commercial value. It will never reach a mass-audience, nor does it intend to do so. It is completely international (the network now even extends into Australia, where it has some highly active members), it is non-funded, non-commercial, and has no market-value. It seems to operate on pure enjoyment, and does its very best to escape attempts at a fixed definition, as does this incomplete collection of contributions by some of the most active Xchange participants about the 'hows and whats' of the Xchange network for the Ars Electronica '98 festival catalogue....

In his Xchange on-air session's lecture 'Acoustic Cyberspace', Erik Davis explored the immersive qualities of audio-environments, to find out what audio might mean for our experience of the 'space' of digital networks. His notion of an acoustic (cyber-) space became a guiding idea for the development of the Xchange net.audio network:


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ERIK DAVIS
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"I've had the opportunity to experience a number of very high-end virtual reality environments. Some of them are profoundly immersive experiences. This isn't necessarily a goal for all virtual environments, but it's definitely a looming question for the people who work on making them: How can we create a space where perception and subjectivity are sucked into an alternate dimension, an alternate kind of space? This is a central narrative about virtual reality; there are many, but this a very strong one. In many ways, it's a naive narrative. Yet the first time I experienced 3D audio, I was transported far more viscerally than in any of the far more sophisticated visually-based virtual reality installations. There was something about the very pure non-graphic spatial organization of very good 3D audio that created an incredibly powerful immersive experience. Typically, people relegate acoustic dimensions to the "background"--a soundtrack or score that "accompanies" a primary vis!
!
ual experience. But in an immersive acoustic environment, you might hear all the sounds you would hear on a street corner, spatially organized in real time, surrounding you. This is much, much, stronger than a visual experience, which tacitly distances you, places you in a transcendent, removed position, rather than embodying you at the center of a new context.

My question here is: why are acoustic spaces so effective in this regard? What is it about sound that is so potentially immersive? I think it has to do with how we register it--how it affects different areas of the bodymind than visuals do.  Affect is a tremendously important dimension of experience, and one of the most difficult to achieve in a visual environment. "Atmosphere" might be a good way to describe this aspect: sound produces atmosphere, almost in the way that incense--which registers with yet another sense--can do. Sound and smell carry vectors of mood and affect which change the qualitative organization of space, unfolding a different logic with a space's range of potentials. Ambient music, or an ambient soundscape, can change the quality of a space in subtle or dramatic ways.

We've seen some interesting experiments and opportunities with the use of RealAudio on the Internet, for example. But, more than that, I'm interested in getting people to think about the larger implications of sound and acoustics. Not as simply a vehicle for communicating information or establishing dialog between far-flung actors; and not simply as electronic music, a genre of activity and expression that, however fascinating, is commodified and compartmentalized from our "other" activities and experiences. A broader understanding of acoustic space is what I'm after: I'm really talking about different dimensions of the kind of subjectivity that we produce in networked environments. This dimension is profound, and we should consider it, work with it, explore it."

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transcript from the lecture at "Xchange On-air session" Riga, November 1997 
edition by Diana McCarty and Ted Byfield


published in net audio issue 'Acoustic Space' http://xchange.re-lab.net
real-audio version available at http://ozone.re-lab.net/festival/erik_d.ram


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RASA SMITE
E-Lab / Radio OZOne - Riga
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... mini -'manifesto' of 'what net.radio is'  - 
(after berlin net.radio days'98 )..

<<Multiplying the definitions about what net.radio is and can be - we are broadening a space for imagination and open it for an unlimited amount of 'new' opportunities (co-broadcast and loops, cyber-sound-space chaos and personal news propaganda, audio-box and mini-fm, etc.).
It's much more important now to make drafts of diverse definitions and basic outlines on the subject 'net.radio', as non-confined notions: To promote the exploration of this 'new tool', and not to exclude eventual participants of the net.broadcasters community - just because of a different perception of things, or because of a different experience. It is important not to split before exploring all the collaboration possibilities, which haven't been experienced enough yet.>>

('imagination' - nice measure of quality)


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RAITIS SMITS:
E-LAB / Radio OZOne - Riga
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XCHANGE-OPEN CHANNEL - co-broadcast experiments in the Net 

X-Open Channel started its co-broadcast experiments in the beginning of 1998 and soon it was developed into a platform for live streaming experiments in the Net - exploring the feedback mechanism and collaboration possibilities. 

Every Tuesday night during net.radio OZOne live sessions the so called 'open channel' is announced. It means that everyone can join in the live session with his/her real-audio live stream.
 
There are several possibilities for co-streaming*. 
The simplest one is to mix your sound source with another (one or more) real audio live-stream. In this case each of participants is doing one part of this live session (e.g. one is streaming voice, another - background music). There one can listen two (or more) different streams - the final one with all transmissions mixed together or each 'input' - live stream separately. 

Another interesting experience of co-streaming is creating the loop. Each broadcaster takes another's live stream, re-encodes it and sends it further for next participant. In this loop sound input is going around and coming back with little delay (5-10 sec.) and it creates multiply sound layers. If sound keeps travelling around, the stream gets more and more noisy, and finally it turns into one continuous noise (it depends also of amount of participants).
Another way of using loop-connection is to cut down the feedback, it can be used e.g. for remote interviews and discussions, news exchange, etc.

I believe, there are much more possibilities for live transmission experiments in the Internet, but these are some basic principles we have experienced during the X-Open Channel live sessions.

* More about - "What and How to broadcast via the Net" (texts by Borut Savski) you can find in net.audio magazine Acoustic.Space or on the web <http://www.radiostudent.si/mzx/netcasting.html>

Raitis Smits / radio OZOne


LINKS OF (SOME) CO-BROADCAST EXPERIMENTS:

1. PPP news (By Rachel Baker) - OZOne (Riga) live session in collaboration with Backspace (London):
Backspace - news text , OZOne - background music.
<http://ozone.re-lab.net/sessions/07apr98.ram> PPP news start at 2'35''40

2. Loop with 3 participants:
interviewing each other with cutting off feedback (Monika Glahn/XLR-Berlin, Borut Savski/MZX-Ljubljana, Raitis Smits&Rasa Smite/OZOne-Riga)
<http://ozone.re-lab.net/sessions/17mar98.ram>   
starts at 3'11'' Riga/   3'13''35 Ljubljana/   3'17''20 Riga/   3'18''8 Berlin  ...   

3. Loop with more than 3 participants:
experiments with music and sound levels 
<http://ozone.re-lab.net/sessions/31mar98.ram> start at 2'28'' 

4. Loop with 5 participants (Monika Glahn/XLR-Berlin, Borut Savski/MZX-Ljubljana, Raitis Smits and Rasa Smite/OZOne-Riga, Martin Schitter/Graz, Gio Angelo and Rachel Baker/Backspace-London)
<http://ozone.re-lab.net/sessions/24mar98.ram>  3'29''50

5. Discussion about net.radio development - Borut Savski (Ljubljana) and Martin Schitter (Graz) in MZX-Ljubljana,  re-transmitted by radio OZOne-Riga
<http://ozone.re-lab.net/sessions/21apr98.ram> 2'36'' 

<!>
X-Open Channel starts every Tuesday at 23.00 (Eastern Europe time) during net.radio OZOne  
live sessions. Meeting and coordination at IRC re-lab.net  #Xchange
contact: raitis@xxxxxxxxxx


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BORUT SAVSKI 
Ministry of Experiment / Radio Student - Ljubljana
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Re: (Xchange) start!>discus.txt> RADIO on the net,
Subject LIVE-streams, NET.AUDIO network