“If the broadcasting power of the most powerful radio station in the Twin Cities is 100,000 watts, we propose a network of micro-radio transmitters that can cumulatively match this power. A movement should be set into motion in the spirit of decentralization and diversity in ownership and programming of the radio waves. Radio Re-volt!” -Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla
This summer turn your bike into a low-power radio station–or your apartment, your bedroom, your work cubicle, your car–during Radio Re-volt: One Person.ooOne Watt, a project by artists-in-residence Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla and the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC). Use your one-milliwatt radio station to reclaim the public airwaves and rethink voltage: who has the power to transmit and how can that power be reformed and redirected?
Across the Twin Cities, the Walker will hold several Radio Re-volt workshops to teach people how to operate these radio transmitters so that each person can amplify his or her own voice, ideas, and interests. Each independent radio station owner will be encouraged to “creatively rethink the uses of radio, thus redirecting transmission power toward a spirit of experimentation and play.” One’s imagination is the only limit. These small, portable Part 15 radios, named for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) law that permits these unlicensed devices, can transmit up to a one-block radius, giving individuals the power to micro-cast while offering microprogramming to their micro-community of friends and neighbors.
Running through the 2004 election, Radio Re-volt unfolds against the backdrop of the most media-saturated presidential campaign in U.S. history as well as the quickly evolving and controversial rules being adopted by the FCC regarding media consolidation. Through workshops, public actions, films, performances, and lectures, the artists and WACTAC will attempt to build public awareness and ignite discussion around issues of radio access and control, independent media, free speech, democracy, and citizenship. They envision the Twin Cities, with its strong free-radio and independent-media activist community, as the perfect place to “re-think the power of the individual voice within a community and to re-empower the medium of radio with the possibilities of radical experimentation.”
