Hi all,

I've been enjoying all the correspondance regarding OPEN-X. It was
particularly great to get the summary of the final meeting that Xchange


had. Is there anyone responsible for following these initiatives through?
If so, whoever that is, I would love to dedicate some time in assisting in
the development of a Xchange timetable.

Also I would like to vote for an ARS audio CD, as opposed to a CDROM. Audio
CDs are much more accessable and usable (even for those of us with
computers). An audio CD could be backed up by a documentation website
rather having the documentation material on the CD itself. The URL could
then be listed on the artwork.


Below is an article I wrote for ANAT to report back to them about net.radio
days 98. It is a late document, in the context of Xchange, but I thought
some might enjoy reading it anyway.


be good

adam




Binary Dispatches
by Adam Hyde


net.radio days 98 (www.art-bag.net/trimmdich/anno.htm) was this year's
manifestation of the annual Radio Days forum, exploring the innovation and
experimentation of radio art.  This year's conference was hosted in Berlin
in June of this year. It was a symposium focused on a new generation of
streaming media practitioners, utilising software such as Real Audio to
broadcast audio content live on the internet.  This phenomena is being
dubbed, net.radio.

The conference was hosted by two organisations, the aspiring Mikro
(www.mikro.org), a collection of academics, net.prophets, info addicts (and
the occasional practitioner), and Convex TV (www.art-bag.net/convextv), a
group of young Berliners that have established a web presence to archive
their fortnightly radio shows on Berlin University radio.  Though not a
triumph of modern organisational practice, it was indeed chaotic and, at
times, positively disorganised, the conference was inspirational.  In fact
net.radio days was one of the most efficacious and interesting symposiums I
have attended.

net.radio days 98 was attended mainly by participants of the Xchange
community (xchange.re-lab.net), an email list formed to facilitate
communication between artists and enthusiasts of sound art, radio and the
internet.  Xchange is a relatively recent phenomena, arising out of the
possibilities offered by streaming media within the past 12 - 18 months.
Though the idea of broadcast on the internet is older than this by some
margin, the utilisation of streaming media differentiates net.radio from
other net practice. This distinction formed, whether knowingly or
subconsciously, the subtext for the conference.

There were about 15 presentations over the 3 days, with lectures covering a
broad range of topics, from examples of individual practices, digital
broadcasting, midi audio technologies, net.radio collaborations, historical
perspectives on broadcasting, and streaming media software.  I found all
these presentations interesting but some were only obliquely relevant to
the practice of net.radio. However some talks were wholly captivating.



One of my favourite addresses was by Convex TV's Martin Conrads who spoke
creatively on the intersection of net.radio and pop-culture. He delved into
many radio icons within literature, including Isaac Asimovs "Harmoniums", a
story about birds which feed on radiowaves, and an anecdote about a
scientist interested in finding the radio frequency emitted by individual
planets.

Co-founder of the nettime mail list, Pit Schultz gave a lecture about the
disadvantages of over-theorising net.radio. During his illuminating
address, he identified the <nettime> culture as an example of a context
unnecessarily stifled by academia, and warned Xchange to evade excessive
intellectual hierarchy.

PHD student, Golo Foellmer gave an interesting lecture entitled 'Sound in
the net'. At first his speech seemed to be only a minimal overview of
net.audio, profiling well known internet audio software and web audio
interfaces like Beatnik and MPEG.  His presentation was interesting, not
because of its detail or depth, but because it provided a challenge to the
net.radio practitioners, to venture outside the limits of Real Audio and
converge streaming media with other forms of net.audio.

I attended net.radio days as a representative of Adelaide based net.radio
station r a d i o q u a l i a (www.va.com.au/radioqualia) to present one of
our projects, self.e x t r a c t i n g.radio (.ser). .ser  is a net.radio
project exploring and critiquing public access broadcasting within an
internet environment.   .ser's attempts to empower new users of internet
based broadcast media, by allowing any web user to add audio files to an
internet radio station playlist, through an automated web interface.

Central to the philosophy of .ser is the belief that broadcasting is an
impoverished art.  The resources to broadcast are rare and those with the
privilege to broadcast are unwilling to take the risks necessary to explore
the potential of the media. The distribution of those resources is the only
way that the medium will realise its capacity. Only when broadcast media is
in the hands of people who are prepared to make mistakes and explore the
communicative and experimental aspects of the media, will broadcasting
achieve its potential. .ser is a simple experiment in the distribution of
the mechanisms of broadcasting.

The presentation of .ser was positively received, providing the impetus for
the discussion of many provocative issues about the relationship between
radio and the internet.  Some of the pivotal themes explored in discussion
centered around the contrasts between traditional radio and net.radio, and
the political and practical restrictions of both media.  Much is made about
the utilitarian potential of the internet and its ability to deconstruct
traditional systems of information regulation, and net.radio has been no
stranger to this rhetoric.

net.radio is "desktop radio". Soft environments replicating the techniques
of arcane processes.  But the simplicity of Real Audio is something that
amateur ham radio enthusiasts never had. Netcasters are able to replicate
the obsessive copper coil windings and practiced drop soldering techniques
of their analogue counterparts, by clumsily crashing away at a keyboard. No
need for diodes, resistoids, capicitrons. It is the technology of the
hobbyist. Able to leap Dick Smiths in a single bound, the zeal of the
handset radio heritage repurposed for more utilitarian purposes. It would
seem the meek have, at last, inherited the earth.....

Of course, this is familiar techno utopianism.  Though production of
net.radio is simpler than traditional radio, ironically consumption, is
much more complicated. The ability to listen is entirely contingent on
audiences' access to a computer and an internet connection.  Freedom of
speech / information is no less regulated by technology and money on the
internet than it is in any other broadcast or publishing context. No matter
how beneficial or admirable the information is, without resources and
technology it can not be transmitted.  These resources are still moderated
by money and other societal systems of regulation.  Hence the impact a
net.broadcaster has on the media environment is limited.


The conference also provided the opportunity for many debates
(www.art-bag.net/convextv/ram/7398.ram) including a public forum at the end
of the last day. I am most indebted to Josephine Bosma for the long
discussions we had about the difference between radio and net.radio.  These
questions have continued to occupy my thoughts.

Increasingly I believe radio can do everything net.radio can. It can be
interactive, as with examples like  talkback, it can be transmitted live
from remote locations, it can 'mix streams', it can operate on a small
scale, it can circulate challenging or 'minority focused' content, and can
even be combined with television to deliver visual elements to broadcasts.

It seems to me one real difference between the two is not content, but the
method by which each distributes information. While net.radio is wired,
radio is wireless, and this difference opens up interesting opportunities
for examination within creative contexts. r a d i o q u a l i a is
presently examining these ideas through The Frequency Clock (to be
presented at INFOWAR, this year's Ars Electronica symposium), an experiment
examining the methods of disseminating audio content through net.radio and
micro-FM.


A quote by Martin Conrads for me best sums up an embryonic, yet critical
facet of an emerging net.radio identity,  "radio does not have to have
content".  This comment alludes to the fact that radio in its purest sense
is radiowaves, not the content that is carried along these frequencies.  He
is proposing that radio can be purely about the traversal of data.
Communication as decoration.  And why should we require ornaments to be
productive?  We can, if we choose, utilise decoration, in a wholly
inconsequential way.

And after all, choice is what we came here for.

...in the gl^tch.bot, they will never hear you scream...


http://www.va.com.au/radioqualia/glitch



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