Margin Release

14 responses so far ↓

• 1 matt // Mar 2, 2008 at 9:01 am

  The ephemeral nature of FMemory is what I keep turning over in my head. Yes, we are broadcasting these sounds, but over what distance? It’s interesting to me how the strength of the transmitter dictates who gets to listen. There were crowded spaces like in the pictures, where one is not even sure of where the transmitter is, but there were also very intimate spaces where to listen one had to be standing directly next to the transmitter. As you traverse the space, you lose one signal but pick up another. Finding a “pocket” where a tiny memory was being broadcast was exciting, and so was participating in the larger memory broadcasts. I really enjoyed this tension over signal strength.

• 2 arden // Mar 2, 2008 at 5:04 pm

  While the event itself was a little chaotic, I really enjoyed the cooperative process of FMemory. What I found to be the most poignant part of the piece was that we were not only forced to collectively record our memories, but also to publicly share them. It compelled me to reconsider how people’s thoughts or memories can be presented to an audience and how this may affect a reaction. Many people paid closer attention to what they were listening to, because they could not view the speaker or were excited about hearing their peers’ voices transmitted through the airwaves. Listeners also had to listen in groups, surrounding a transmitter in order to pick up a signal, and so this caused them to share responses. I found that the accessibility of the project and the enjoyment experienced from such a technically simple art piece made me want to participate and create more projects like this one.

• 3 cubby // Mar 2, 2008 at 11:25 pm

  When I was successful at frequency hunting, listening to the memories felt somewhat like eavesdropping—particularly when it seemed I was the only one around accessing a particular transmission. At times I had an urge to put headphones on someone else and get them listening too. Then others could share my excitement at finding a memory but also diminish my feeling of listening in on something private. Originally I thought that, given the highly subjective nature of memory, I had wanted to recruit more listeners also to verify the stories I heard. Now I see that I did not need someone else to substantiate the stories of the memories but to vindicate my role as a listener.

• 4 noah // Mar 2, 2008 at 11:55 pm

  The aspect of FMemory that struck me, primarily, was that anyone came. I was really pleasantly surprised by the school community’s apparent enthusiasm for what I thought would be perceived as a largely obtuse round of artistic back-patting. I think FMemory served as a very nice model for a sort of ideal artistic interaction - one in which all participants are equal parts artistic contributors, practical facilitators, and spectators, and individual credit is largely absent. Everyone offered their perspective in the form of a memory, and all of those perspectives and stories formed a conglomerate whole within which it was frequently difficult to distinguish individual parts. It may well be impossible for that type of artistic community to function on a larger scale, and one could probably make a compelling argument that such a communal interaction, largely devoid of individual credit, may be in fact detrimental to momentum and progress. Nevertheless, I found it quite interesting to see a collective interaction of a nature quite different from the standard, and I think in many ways it may be predictive of the potential that lies in the informational ubiquity provided by the internet. The event was definitely a success in that we managed to take what seems at face value to be a fairly masturbatory enterprise and make it into a group activity that transcended intellectual self-gratification.

• 5 noah // Mar 2, 2008 at 11:57 pm

  addendum: nice plaid, all.

• 6 alyssa // Mar 3, 2008 at 12:03 pm

  Michael Trigilio’s talk at the Cat definitely informed my understanding of my experience at FMemory. He made it clear that accessibility was a major priority for himself and the other artists at the NPR radio station in California. Anyone from his neighborhood who felt that they had something to say or contribute was invited to join in–even if he personally found it to be tiresome or uncool. It was more about creating an open, local platform for dialogue than solely a vehicle for the people at NPR to broadcast their own perspectives. That accessibility was very effectively mirrored by the microphone hooked up to the radio at FMemory. It sent the message that even though we as Margin Release recorded our own memories and transmitted it, we don’t consider our perspectives the be-all and end-all. We invited anyone who happened to wander into the art building to collaborate with us, diminishing the sense of elitism that is often seen as inherent in art shows. I really believe that in some sense, we empowered the visitors at FMemory by validating them as contributors (or even just potential contributors) to our presentation. Just as NPR’s work in California was an instrument for social change, our experiment with FMemory proved that the model of radio-as-social-change can be replicated and expanded. I really look forward to seeing how Michael Trigilio and NPR advance this theme at the Whitney Biennial.

• 7 Lauren // Mar 3, 2008 at 6:51 pm

  I was happily surprised by the success of the FMemory event. The whole concept of the installation seemed very abstract to me right until it was actually happening. Seeing the art hallway, a usually bland and institutional place, transformed into an event with an almost living palpable energy was very exciting. I am accustomed to art exhibits where the viewer is supposed to be quietly taking in the work but this event had more the feeling of a scavenger hunt with everyone talking and enthusiastically trying to figure out what was going on. I was particularly interested in the live transmission microphone that was set up and how popular it was. I was not sure how people would take to this interactive aspect of the FMemory but people were surprisingly eager to participate by sharing their memories on the air.

• 8 dory // Mar 3, 2008 at 8:28 pm

  i’ve been thinking a lot recently about the relationship between reception and transmission– the way we speak about ourselves and our experiences, and the way other people accept and interpret that information. the fmemory installation gave us a chance to create a kind of identity feedback loop: here is my memory, here you are listening to my memory… and then halfway down the hall, you speak your memory into a microphone and i hear it on a radio a few feet away. i think the live aspect of the event was one of the most important, and i also liked the way it spoke to the temporality of radio– people were sharing all their memories and experiences over the microphone, but there was no recording of it. the words went out through the transmitter, and if you missed them they were gone.

  it’s nice to get a dose of transience in our lives every once in a while, especially in an age where our internet imprint is something that seems to last forever.

• 9 Gavin // Mar 4, 2008 at 2:04 am

  The hall qua laboratory was host to a group of researchers, operating only with their portable radio. While the act, much less the radio itself, seems inherently schizophrenic, the act remained highly structured. By locating the areas of disconnect, interference, layering, interpenetration…the tension inherent as a singular narrative becomes discrete amidst the multiplicity, attendees developed a cartography, a spatial schema. The physical movement through the space was a process for the testing of alternative actions, as the hall was transformed into a conglomeration of immanent microcosms. For me, the emphasis lay less on visualizing these abstract ideas of memory and lay more within the lived experience of a reorganized space/reality that played on my notions of the uninterrupted physical structure. Indeed, the live “performative” aspect of the microphone subverted the notion of this transient cartography, often overpowering all signals and making the efforts for a unified whole ultimately a wash.

  In a semi related note, this use of short range radio transmitting proved extremely interesting as the “extensions of man” operated within a relative line of sight as opposed to their original intent. The notion of extending ones influence to an unnecessarily finite grid seems to be recurrent in the work of NPR and ultimately intriguing. How far can one extend oneself before the dissolution of a pure community, of a collective.

• 10 sarah // Mar 4, 2008 at 7:58 am

  A lot of people came-the high level of attendance of the event was rather stunning. I didn’t expect that many, if any people to come and also all bring radios. The large turn out can probably be the result of the large and eye-catching posters as well as the newspaper announcements. However it did not seem like a lot of people from outside of the art department/cinema/TIMARA came so I think we should work on trying to target different people and show them that what we are doing and what the artists are saying is relevant to them as well.

  Technology-we (I) think of radio as a thing of the past, in a similar citatory as black and white TV and records, saddle shoes. Pod casts, you tube and blogs being the communication of the present. Despite radio’s archaic reputation, myself and many others have little understanding of what radio is. I had no idea one could just build something out of a few wires and connect and broadcast to other people (or how that works), to conquer their radio. The project really helped me understand radio and made what was to me very uncompressible, tangible.

  Old and the new- I felt like this project really brought together and at the same time played off each other old and new forms. This was done in two ways, through the combination of radio and simple transmitters with computers and ipods and through the recall and recoding of old memories and bringing them to the present. The combination of these simple and past things with new modern things was very graceful and exhibited that nothing need be discarded as useless.

  Participation/live/singular experience-although the recordings will never change and can be played again and again in anything and heard by anyone the live broadcasts can not. I think that aspect of the program was most interesting. Usually when you show up to an art show you expect to see/here something someone else has done, but we not only did that but let people participate, create their own little art show at our show. I also think that was the most exciting part for other people. Even if they didn’t hear what they were saying it was thrilling to know someone else might be hearing your secrets or thoughts or sounds. And I think the idea that possibly no one would or could hear you was also very intriguing to those who were broadcasting.

• 11 logan // Mar 4, 2008 at 8:27 am

  Does anyone agree with me that one of the most intriguing aspects of this event was just the honest sense of experimentation and amount of basic fun that people drew from this? I think the fact that FMemory had never been realized before, and that no one quite knew exactly what to expect the experience to be like, (including Michael Trigilio), helped put everybody’s role in interacting with the project on the same level. There was something very inclusive and (for lack of a better description), DIY about seeing everybody navigating the hallway with their own portable radios listening to transmissions of their peers’ memories through transmitters they made themselves. This notion was further extended by the fact that anybody could participate by sharing their memories live, if they felt like doing so.

  The great thing about this project was that it could work on so many levels. I think a lot of people have brought up valid points, especially about about ephemerality, transcience, and how the project dealt with these issues- but I think just as important was the sheer non-pretentious playfulness involved in the entire event. People were having a good time, and being inspired at the same time. It makes me wonder what the experience would have been like in a different, maybe more public setting.

• 12 Louie // Mar 4, 2008 at 10:47 pm

  I attempted to articulate this one particular idea on film during the Fmem event, although it came out sounding kind of crude, or rude–I don’t really feel like I have to forgive myself for that anymore though. I just remeber walking up to two people I knew in that hallway as the broadcasting was happening and feeling comfortable to provide myself with some space from them and them from me. It somehow feels sometimes like I am at a loss for knowing exactly how to conduct myself when experiencing or viewing art that requires a certain kind of circulation. Somehow though, and maybe because I took part in this project, I felt okay with the ephemerality of my interactions with others. It almost felt as if the casual conversations that I was having with others was another layer of sound that I was experiencing over the sounds from the broadcasting. For me, there was no end or beginning to any given experience during that event–be it a recorded memory, or conversations with other participants. It was a fluidity that I felt comfortable with and enjoyed.

• 13 ben // Mar 5, 2008 at 11:53 pm

  Before the FMemory event, I had my doubts about its success because I feared that the hand-held radio was nearing extinction. This is not to say that the idea of radio is going extinct, but rather that it is shifting its focus to the internet, where radio can be heard anywhere, anytime, on demand. However, this installation wisely inverted the passivity that is generally associated with radio listening—rather than turning on the radio out of boredom in the car, on one’s computer, people where asked to bring a piece of near-obsolete equipment to a specific place at a specific time. At this specific place, the radio as a physical object functioned as a tool for decoding the installation, rather than an entertainment console. Judging from the crowd at the event, I would say this was a convincing transformation.

• 14 Neighborhood Public Radio » Blog Archive » FMemory workshop at Oberlin // Apr 30, 2008 at 9:18 am

  […] The students in the Margin Release classes have produced a great blog, and they wrote extensively about their experiences with the FMemory broadcast. You can read that blog here. […]

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