COLLABORATIVE RADIO ARTWORKS AND EXPERIMENTATION WITH SHORTWAVE COLLECTIVE

Lisa Hall as part of the Shortwave Collective

Shortwave Collective is an international feminist artist group established in May 2020, interested in the creative use of radio. We meet regularly to explore the radio spectrum as artistic material and feminist approaches as part of this - sharing resources, considering DIY approaches and inclusive structures. We are: Alyssa Moxley, Brigitte Hart, Georgia Muenster, Hannah Hemp-Welch, Karen Warner, Kate Donovan, Lisa Hall, Maria Popadomanolaki, Miera Asher and Sally Applin with associate ‘rainbow’ members Francesca Casauay and Sasha Englemann.

Our work includes making DIY adaptable no-power radios as a collective and with others in workshops. We have named these radios the ‘Open Wave-Receiver’. They are ‘open’ radios that do not tune into any specific frequency but rather listen broadly to the simultaneous electromagnetic frequencies found in a location. Their circuit and design is also open, able to include found metal objects as diodes (spoons, tent pegs) or as antennas (fences, lampposts). Our practice of listening through these radios acknowledges our geographic location, the time of day, season, the listeners mood or physicality and other factors that shape the sonic experience. The Open Wave-Receiver is available in a how-to guide in Make Magazine and as an audio guide. We regularly run making and listening workshops in which we collaborate with others to explore the radio design and the listening experience. Our 22 hour work Constellations of Listening, created originally for Radio Art Zone, shares our collective and solitary listening experiences as we searched for radio reception over many months and in many locations  through Open Wave-Receivers and other devices such as VHF and VLF receivers, software-defined radio, walkie-talkies, and electromagnetic detectors.