The annual conference/workshop Interactive Screens provided the backdrop
to infiltrate the beautiful Banff Center for the Arts in Canadia  with some
grubby
netcasters, dj's and net+radio innovators.

ONLINE => ONAIR
To his credit, heath had already set the groundwork with Radio 90, an FM
pirate radio
operating out of a tiny studio, providing the nucleus from which
Banffcasting can grow
like bio-engineered skin.

Radio 90 picks up RA streams from favoured netcast outfits from all over
the world like Interface, Betalounge, Ozone, Convex Tv etc
(http://www.banff.org/radio)
Locals, Japanese tourists and American christians can listen in.
Listening pleasure is also provided by Banff staff with personal music
collections of tapes, CD's and vinyl.

BACKDOOR at BANFF
But Banff is not yet an ideal set-up for streaming out. There is little
bandwidth, the audio server is limited and there is a certain amount of
usual institutional lethargy and bureaucracy to tackle

But there is future strategy in the form of Susan
Kennard.<mailto:susan@xxxxxxxxx>  Susan is plugged into the extensive
campus and community radio networks around Canadia and is inspired enough
by net+radio  to instigate plans for a Canadian broadcast revolution via
the backdoor created at banff by heath.

BANFFCASTY
Suzy K is collaborating with Ashley Gillard (Mad Ash)
<mailto:ashleygillard@xxxxxxxxxxx> from Interface radio who was at Banff
for Interactive Screens. Everyone, including the corporate visitors, fell
in love with Mad Ash and Interface which is as pirate as Errol Flynn. The
Interface reputation for joyous, irreverent DIY was boosted as London's
finest performed  at the banff house parties, creatively tackling eclectic
record collections, mixing ska and stevie wonder. The speakers blew.

As part of the Banffcast week <http://www.irational.org/radio/banff>  we
managed to webcast one of these parties from Susan's house. This was made
possible by Rasa and Raitis <mailto:rasa@xxxxxxxx> who brought their
ever-present portable audio server and encoder(every net-casting
propagandist should have one)
Rasa and Raitis delivered a practical streaming workshop for the
Interactive Screens participants.
One student, Mervin Jarman <mailto:mervin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> from Mongrel,
said - "Thanks to Rasa and Raitis i now have the know-how to distribute the
best and purest reggae tunes from the comfort of my living room - they even
prepared a handout packed with URLS and info. I'll be rich!". Merv,
otherwise known as 'El Tigre' hosted a banffcast with some delicious reggae
and murderous MCing.
And ofcourse all material was broadcast on-air via radio 90's 20watt
transmitter (every broadcasting propagandist should have one)

MAYBE YOU CAN FIND MERV ON THE BANFFCAST ARCHIVE
<http://ozone.re-lab.net/archive/banff/banff.ram>

My favourite banffcast was the RTMARK telesales.
4 telephone operators (jennifer, t.mould, susie k, mr rtmark) competed for
TESCO POINTS in a telesales contest to phone the banff locals and sell the
idea of corporate sabotage. Jennifer won and was awarded 500 tesco points.
Introducing the telephone to the internet, FM radio loop made
for an exciting and dangerous event. There will be more telesales.

NET AUDIO PANEL
we decided to webcast the netaudio panel at Interactive Screens. Just in c
ase you didn't hear,
the net audio panel covered 4 main areas -
1)distributing audio via automated databases, archives/schedulers
we demonstrated backspace (http://mole.backspace.org),
Radio International Stadt (http://orange.de)
Ozone (http://re-lab.net/?)
There was a lot of enthusiasm for these models when issues such as
decentralised programming
and audio resource facilities was considered.
Also, the wider potential for other media(video) to be distributed and
accessed this way.
We decided not to discuss use of the 'radio' metaphor

2)audience
Who the hell is listening to net radio?
Susan and the Ozone crew are happy if there is a listenership of just one.
Ozone, because the listener is a potential producer, and the webcast is
seen as a performative process, improvised and experiential.
 Susan, because the main point is that there exists the facility to make
independent radio.
Heath and Ashley want maximum listenership, mainly for propagandist reasons.
Typically i fell somewhere inbetween. Kathy Kenndey made an impropmtu
virtual appearance on the chat
to wild applause from the Interactive Screens audience

3)online + onair -mixing net transmission with FM transmission
So this is where relations between radio and net, so obvious to so many for
so long, become
manifest. The appeal of the radio set as point of reception and net as
point of production/distribution is, at this moment, something to
celebrate.
The potential for serving a local community in tandem with an international
network
has to be worth pursuing.
Watch out for transmitter action in Bristol, Manchester, London and Linz

4)this ever-tactical panel resolved to produce a document (on and offline)
that would act as
a definitive guide for DIY net+FM radio casters. Rasa and Raitis' workshop
notes will be included and heath will publish on irational.

SO there will be no excuses - act like a pirate.

THANKS to Janis, who provided the server space for streaming (the backspace
server is vulnerable to crashing right now)

see you all at revolting
and ars
and bristol

xrb





 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
(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/