Hi all,

For those of you based within the UK, or within travelling distance to London, I wanted to warmly invite you to an half-day seminar we are staging at Tate Modern called WIRELESS CULTURES.  

The event features input from radio artist and pioneer Tetsuo Kogawa, (Japan), cultural theorist Micz Flor (Germany), artist and filmmaker Pete Gomes (UK), and Simon Worthington of Mute Magazine (UK).

I'd be absolutely delighted if you could come, as would I'm sure, the participants of the event. 
I would also appreciate it if you could pass on this to any colleagues who you think might be interested.



Greetings

Honor Harger
Webcasting Curator
Interpretation & Education, Tate Modern
Digital Programmes, Tate
[log in to unmask]
http://www.tate.org.uk/audiovideo/
PH: (44) 020 7401 5066



FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

WIRELESS CULTURES

A seminar / mini-conference at Tate Modern, London, UK


TIMES AND DATES

Saturday 1 February, 14:00 - 18:30 GMT


LOCATION

Starr Auditorium, Level 2, Tate Modern, London, UK


ABOUT THE EVENT

A half-day seminar which explores the use of wireless communication in artistic and social practices.

Artists and cultural practitioners have experimented with wireless forms of communication for most of the past century.  Since the invention of radio by Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi, artists have utilised the radio spectrum as a medium for creative intervention and experimentation.  

In his 1932 essay, 'The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication', Bertolt Brecht wrote about the radical potential of radio to become a system of open communication, a method to "let the listener speak as well as hear".  While, the free radio movement and cultural experiments with miniFM radio (most notably in Tokyo in the 1980s), micro-radio and pirate radio attempted to explore the potential of radio as a communicative medium, regulations and licensing laws have ensured that the means to transmit radio has remained by and large in the hands of the few.  

Recently a new form of wireless communication utilising the radio spectrum, has emerged as a possible example of the many-to-many media that Brecht, John Cage and others imagined in the 1930s.  Wireless internet connectivity, using the radio band, has catalysed the emergence of mobile social networks in cities all over Europe and the United States.  Driven by a Brechtian ideal to 'mobilise the user and redraft him/her as a producer', small grass roots groups are attempting to sever artists' reliance on large centrally provided telecommunications structures, and create a new form of communicative mobility.  
Groups such as consume and Free2Air in London act as hubs for research and data-sharing regarding methods to distribute wireless connectivity for cultural and not-for-profit use around the city.  The focus of these groups is on 'localising' the global medium of the internet, connecting neighbourhoods together in local area networks, using hundreds of radio antenna and wireless hubs. 

How are these mobile networks catalysing new areas of creative practice?  How have radio pioneers created historical precedents for this practice?  

This half-day seminar explores the use of wireless communication in artistic and social contexts, through presentations and comments by:
- Tetsuo Kogawa - radio pioneer (Japan)
- Micz Flor - cultural theorist (Germany) 
- Pete Gomes - artist and filmmaker (UK)
- Simon Worthington -  co-editor and founder of Mute magazine  (UK)
- Sean Dodson - journalist (UK)
 
Tickets £10 (£5 concessions)

------------------------------------------


MORE INFORMATION

For more on this event, see: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/programmes/events.htm
or contact:
Honor Harger, Webcasting Curator, Interpretation & Education, Tate Modern
Email: [log in to unmask]
PH: (44) 020 7401 5066


For more information about Tate or getting tickets for the event: Tate Box Office
Email: [log in to unmask]
PH: (44) 020 7887 8888
URL: http://www.tate.org.uk