Avant Radio Festival
About this Event
Early Bird Registration: $175
Early Bird Deadline: August 1
Regular Registration: $195
Friday November 13
2:00 PM
Dorit Chrysler: Theremin Workshop with Dorit Chrysler
limit 15 participants, extra cost for materials ($35)
The Art of Playing the Theremin - Everything you ever wanted to know about the theremin! Dorit Chrysler will guide you through tips and tricks during this workshop. You will learn technical and practical aspects in how to approach this mysterious instrument. Theremins will be provided for each session. Sessions are limited to 15 players. Calibration, positioning, exercises, repertoire, woowoo - and no touching!
5:00 PM
Raw Power: Radio Remotes for the Masses
In a new era of political repression and corporate consolidation where mainstream media becomes less reliable, Democracy will depend on communities building new methods of sharing and distributing information. In this workshop, the DJs of ART FM will lead participants through the steps of developing their own online signal, allowing them to broadcast their voices, ideas,and musical selections live and loud from wherever they may be in the world. Includes demonstrations from WXOX DJs in their various remote locations.
8:00 PM
Performance/Demo: Demon Box
Developed by Eternal Research, the Demon Box transforms the hidden electromagnetic world into sound, signal, light and data. It captures frequencies from everyday electronics like phones, drills, and TVs, then converts them into audio signal, MIDI data, and control voltage.
9:00 PM
Radio Wonderland
Radio Wonderland (aka composer-performer Joshua Fried) turns the very bits and bytes of commercial culture into the driving backbeat to our dance of independence. "Radio Wonderland" abstracts live FM radio with laptop, electrified shoes hit with sticks, and a computer-hacked steering wheel (from a Buick 6). "Radio Wonderland" software creations include The Reshuffler (deploy slices of radio on a rhythmic grid making instant techno 90 percent of the time), the Re-Esser (extract the sibilance, play those S's, T's, and K's like a drum machine), and Anything Kick (morph slowed-down radio into a bass drum to shake the dance floor).
10:00 PM
Performance by M(K)G
Saturday November 14
9:30AM
Hearty White: Homemade Radio Theater with Hearty White
Homemade Radio Theater or How to Make Bad TV on the Radio, with WFMU spiritual leader and master of voices, philosophy and foley, Hearty White
9:30 AM
Models for Organizing/Curating Radio Art with Galen Joseph-Hunter
Galen Joseph-Hunter served as Executive Director of the international transmission arts organization Wave Farm including WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears from 2002-2025. She has organized and curated numerous exhibitions and events internationally on behalf of Wave Farm and is the author of the book “Transmission Arts: Artists and Airwaves” (PAJ Publications: 2011.)
11:00 AM
What is Radio Art / Transmission Art with Anna Friz
Anna Friz is a sound and radio artist, and media studies scholar. Since 1998 she has created and presented new audio art and radiophonic works internationally in which radio is often the source subject and medium of the work.
1:30 PM
36 Years of Experimental Radio Comedy
36 Years of Experimental Comedy: Co-hosts Andy Breckman and Ken Freedman discuss their long running comedy experiment, their greatest successes and most hilarious failures.
3:00 PM:
Workshop: Inductive Listening with Zach Poff
Zach Poff is a New York area media artist, educator, and maker-of-things. His artwork is rooted in open systems that eschew individual authorship in favor of collaborative or generative models. At ARF, Zach will faciliate a hands-on workshop titled "Inductive Listeners." We will build inductive coils to plug into sound recorders, then go on a walk around the neighborhood to listen to the radio emissions of infrastructure. Participants should bring a laptop, wired headphones, and if possible, a sound recorder that is not a phone. Limited to 12 participants. $30.
3:00 PM
Neon Icon: Syndicating Experimental Programming
Groundbreaking and spellbinding, you have created an exceptional piece of experimental audio and this workshop will help get it out there! Looking to sites such as Pacifica Audioport and Public Radio Exchange, the DJs of WXOX will help you format, distribute, and publicize your program for airplay on noncommercial stations nationwide!
4:00 PM Babette Thomas
Babette Thomas is a radio producer media artist and PhD candidate in the departments of Black Studies and American Studies at Yale University. They are also the co-host of the award-winning podcast, Gender Spiral. Babette's current research focuses on community radio.
5:00 PM Audience Building
WFMU Station Manager Ken Freedman discusses the tools and strategies that have expanded WFMU's audience and have allowed the station's revenue to grow from $50k to $3m per year. Ken will also update the Audience Engine project and describe station opportunities for using the tool.
8:00 PM Negativland performance
extra $5 for workshop registrants
Negativland + Sue-C present "Significantly Less Deceptive:" Legendary sound collage group Negativland and live cinema visual artist SUE-C collaborate to bring you their latest audio-visual performance about our minds, our current realities, and the evolving forms of media and technology that orchestrate our perceptions.
9:00 PM Negativland Q&A
Negativland's Mark Hosler, Jon "Wobbly" Leidekker and Sue C discuss take your questions on their incredible legacy of media jamming and sampledelic art.
Sunday November 15
10:00 AM All Together Now: Activating the EAS
Hurricanes, earthquakes, and nuclear war, thanks to the Emergency Alert System radio broadcasters have a fast and efficient system for dealing with natural emergencies. Developing a similar rapid response network for responding to political and societal emergencies is the goal of this closing day workshop. Riding on the heels of impromptu radio nationwide broadcasts following the invasion of Ukraine and the M**der of Breonna Taylor, this session will focus on building a network of stations and audio practitioners who can quickly and creatively react to global events and respond with coordinated action.
10:00 AM Supplemental Media - Tik Tok, Twitch, Print, etc etc
11:00 AM TBA
11:00 AM TBA
12:00 PM Looking to the Future full group session
Where do we go from here? What are the possibilities? What is this for?
ARF Accommodations
The Avant Radio Festival takes place at WFMU’s Monty Hall, and Art House Productions, both located in downtown Jersey City, near the Paulus Hook neighborhood:
Monty Hall is located at 43 Montgomery Street in Jersey City, NJ
Art House Productions is located at 345 Marin Boulevard in Jersey City, NJ
The two venues are a five minute walk from one another.
Nearby Hotels:
Canopy by Hilton
(Canopy is the closest hotel to both venues, and is across the street from Art House Productions.)
Guest Reservations
Residence Inn by Marriott Jersey City
Marriott.com
Hyatt House Jersey City
https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-house/en-US/lgaxj-hyatt-house-jersey-city
Airbnbs in downtown Jersey City
Airbnd.com
Less Expensive Hotels which are 20-30 minutes away:
Chelsea Pines Inn , New York City
Chelsea Pines Inn
Hotel Indigo, New York City
https://www.ihg.com/hotelindigo/hotels/us/en/new-york/nycwl/hoteldetail
Harmony Suites, Secaucus, NJ
https://www.harmonysuites.com/
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 7.67 to USD 195.00
