New subject: From Our Sister Hackerspace in Belgrade: "participate in a show far away:)"

8 Mar 2013

Sudo Radio may want to rep in this Serbian WorldWide art show.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Darija Medic &lt;needles.and.pinheads(a)gmail.com&gt;
Date: 8 March 2013 09:22
Subject: participate in a show far away:)
To:
Hi everyone,
I'm having a show in Belgrade, and if you want to participate by
broadcasting yourself on radio,
you can do it remotely,  by downloading the Firefox add on from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/browserradio/
and whatever you type from 12-20h every day except Sunday will be
broadcasted in the gallery and its surroundings until the end of the show.
official invite>>>
Transmitting is a two way channel is an exhibition that deals with the
perception of “old” and new media through the concept of radio
broadcasting. Throughout the space there are computers with a modified
Firefox browser- everything that the visitor types into any browser text
field (such as a search engine) is broadcasted via a text to speech
synthesis software on on an empty frequency on radio ad can be heard on
several radio devices placed around the space. Visitors also have an
opportunity to broadcast their wanted material from other locations, using
the Internet, by installing the Firefox add on that makes it possible,
creating an accidental dadaist radio show as a collage of collective text.
By setting things in such a way, attention is placed on the physical aspect
of information and the controversial consistency of digital data on the
Internet, indicating the problematics of the visibility of information
technology structures. All typed material stays archived and publicly
accessible after the show.
This show aims to question the social nature of digital information, as
well as participative network systems (Internet), that are seen as the
opposite to a one directional model of old mass media. Offering a strategy
of Reverse search engineering (search engine and reverse engineering), we
gain the possibility to use search engines or any other browser text field
as a subversive broadcasting unit, consciously communicating with “smart
algorithms” that find practical meaning in any textual form.
Paying attention to the physical aspect of information, it becomes traced
and tangible over radio transmission, filling up the space of the gallery,
making the webs of communication happening everywhere around us visible.
The title Transmitting is a two way channel refers to Brecht's critique of
the one sidedness of the radio system (later to be mass media in general)
in which he argued that every signal recipient should be capable of
broadcasting himself,in a way foreseeing the development of the Internet.
On the other hand, the sole expansion of the Internet has passed a long way
from a utopian image of a decentralized network for knowledge exchange to a
bureaucratized commercial medium for advertising on which intellectual
debate, as well as banal information become the source of capital.
Appropriating a free FM frequency, as a squatting strategy, reminds us that
the FM spectrum became a subject of ownership over time, and at the same
time consists of an ephemeral structure- air. It could have also stayed a
common good, free in both senses of the word, whereas wi-fi technology as a
technology of radio is telling of the common use of this technology for the
purpose of controlling information systems, as well as, consequently, the
unexplored possibilities of the radio spectrum.
During the whole show the artist will be present, contributing her everyday
typing activity to the radio broadcast and inviting people to join her.
There will also be a workshop on hacking fm transmitters will be held in
the gallery space by Filip Dulić, the Belgrade hacklab electronic guru, on
Friday, Tuesday and Thursday from 18h.
Good frequencies from Belgrade!
darija