WTE103FM - WILDING THE EDGES 103FM  

(Audio, 6 min 18 secs, looped for 1 hr live broadcast, MAY 2015)

 

WTE103FM was a live radio broadcast transmitted onto an FM frequency (103FM) for one hour only. It was received by a number of FM radios that were tuned into the broadcast and placed around Wimbledon College of Art.

 

WTE103FM was part of Wilding the Edges, a project that explored the physical edgelands around the Wimbledon area. I translated these hinterlands into the FM broadcast band 87.5 to 108.0 megahertz (MHz) to explore the physicality of the spectrum itself and the line between uninhabited and populated.

 

The work also experimented with the ideas of heckling as a form of construction and what is perceived to be an intrusion. Two people having a conversation may see this action as the reality and the environment it is taking place in as a potential intrusion, but are they the intrusion?

 

WTE103FM investigated the responsibility of sound, the perceived ownership, and what it is that suddenly makes sound an intrusion. If a sound is functional for the individual is it therefore not considered an intrusion?

 

The show was intended as a happening alongside referencing extracts from one of John Cage and Morton Feldman's radio happenings from the 60s, where they discussed repetition and the intruding elements of transistor radios. It also included an original sound work created by Lorraine Devine, which was a selection of field recordings applied to a popular song framework. The broadcast took the format of a commercial radio production. read more