RADIO
Introduction
The LungA Radio School is a temporary schooling community, unfolding as a 10 month part time program consisting of ten participants / co-hosts / school makers - - living and breathing in each their particular terrestrial location - - convening On Air weekly for various kinds of gatherings i.e. workshops, lectures, on-air-exhibitions, listening-sessions, reading-groups, practice-sharings, radio-experiments and more.
The first iteration of the LungA Radio School will take place over a 10-month period with commitment from February 17th 2025 to December 18th 2025
Application opens: 1st of November 2024
Application deadline: 15th of December 2024
Application is written and sound-based
Program cost: 150.000 isk.
Listener subscription: Donation-based (pay-what-you-can)
Payment deadline: 17th of January 2025
If you are interested in following the school content and broadcasts as a listener rather than participant, you can subscribe to our broadcast account and receive notifications when we go On Air - - and you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter with excerpts from activities and access to archived content.
In the following sections we will attempt, with words and whispers, to slowly, gently awaken the soil that is the LungA Radio School - which we consider an open collective experiment, lived On Air.
Impulse
Over the years, we have become infected with Radio
That is: we have become blessed/cursed with
magic of the radio room
the intimacy of a community of listeners
the attention in conversation
an attention to the “third being” that comes alive
when radio is and we are
And then, several overlapping conversations
concerning
availability, lifeworlds, voices, positions, privileges.
and we responded: (again)
R-A-D-I-O
not as an answer,
but rather an impulse,
leaving us in a layered grid of overlapping questions
so - - -
the LungA Radio School programme
is an attempt at collective school-making-at-a-distance
Invitation
let us imagine and then create a radio art that fearlessly descends into the darkness, inside and out; a radio art that seeks out dead nerves and fires them back into life; a radio art that invites the listener to feel at home with entropy and decay; a radio art that embraces an ethos of free association and honest ambiguity; a radio art that instantly incinerates the rotting corpses thrown into our space; a radio art that rejects the tight and tidy formats of the corporate logos; a radio art that turns a deaf ear to all branded Empires of the Self; a radio art that restores vital imagination to the dumbed down Social Brain; a radio art that hums and howls against the perpetrators of ecocide and torture; a radio art that infiltrates and pacifies the weapons of lethal vibration; a radio art that finds the lover in revolt and gives her wings.
Gregory Whitehead - Wings of Eros on Birds of Prey
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️
then –
an I goes a You goes a We goes a They goes
as in goes in waves
bodies in a sonic mist
waves in aether
waves in tongues
waves as in tides singing
a-dear-mother-radio-sounding-worlds
—
we have been weaving blankets lately
as in: breathing together
as in: something has been in us
as in: in our minds
as in: between our minds
as in: separate from our minds
as in: a voice singing a third
psychic transmission is on the rise
swirling in a radio transmission already here
- so - lets rest here,
until we share telepathic frequencies
We would like to invite you
to the LungA Radio School
a-radio-making-school
making-school-over-radio
What it is and what it is not
The LungA Radio School is (as a starting point), in short and direct terms, a school taking form in/on/through radio - more specifically through Seyðisfjörður Community Radio, broadcasting on FM 107,1 and on - www.seydisfjordurcommunityradio.net
🔔 The LungA Radio School is not a school about radio - it is a school in/on/through radio.
The radio is where we live. It is our home.
The radio is where we breathe. It is our habitat.
It is where we speak/talk/listen/translate/read together.
It is where we show and share work to and from each other, and others.
It is where we agree/disagree - leave it and lose it, in an act of… giving…
🔔 The LungA Radio School is a temporary, aetheric commune consisting of ten participants / co-hosts / school makers - - living and breathing in each their particular place on this celestial body, convening On Air weekly for various kinds of gatherings such as: workshops hosted by guest artists and participants, sessions for sharing practices, experimenting over radio, cooking meals together, going for walks, etc.
🔔The LungA Radio School is not a school about radio art - but an art school in/on/through radio.
Everything, regardless of medium, has qualities of vibration - a frequency - a sounding quality that invites a radiophonic existence.
🔔 The LungA Radio School is a string-figure inspired mode of organization.
Mother Radio are the hands that holds us, holds the weave in the aetheric desert, allowing the strings to forge new patterns as we breathe together.
🔔 The LungA Radio School is not a planned sequence of events. It is a practice of schooling-together.
- and thus we shape it as it shapes us.
🔔 The LungA Radio School is a rhythm - is a rhythm - is a rhythm - is a rhythm
is a fire we are keeping
so the birds can rest
Properties
We will be school-making together. We have given some thought to what a good starting point and structure could be, that can support that kind of collective school-making. It is composed of both formal and informal qualities.
SOME FORMAL PROPERTIES:
🌀we meet twice-a-week On Air*
The weekly meetings comprise a kind of rhythmic continuity, a recurring sound, something to rely on. Mondays and Thursdays. The time will differ to accommodate various time-zones.
These weekly gatherings differ from week to week. Some weeks we will be visited by guest artists hosting a session and proposing a score, some weeks we read together, some weeks we share work, some weeks there will be a lecture or presentation. Sometimes we all participate with our voices, sometimes some will receive while others will give.
🌀time is stretchy
It might not be possible for everyone to join all gatherings - this is completely fine. Radio is accompanying our lives and our lives don't always offer that kind of predictability. Being a decentralized constellation is also an invitation to integrate temporal dis-alignment as part of our communication ethos. This means that participation does not imply strict synchronicity but rather a non-linear temporal relation.
In other words:
Most likely our time zones are slightly incompatible, so this is something we will work with (and around) during the programme. As a starting point we imagine that Monday gatherings will have a fixed time while Thursdays are more flexible according to the activity, who’s hosting, and other considerations. All other broadcasts that might appear will be planned by those initiating. (see FAQ for more info)
All broadcasts will be archived and thus available to listen to when possible.
🌀we take turns*
All participants will host weekly gatherings (as well as unplanned events) throughout the programme. We’re all radio makers - and we, as faculty and community-members, are there to support and cultivate this agency.
*note on equipment: a simple sound card and a microphone is helpful, but not strictly necessary
*note on support: on-going support sessions will be available in connection with individual broadcasts
🌀air for all*
A radio broadcast is by its nature available for all who tune in. This means that while we compose a group of school participants that are actively school-making together, and contributing to the content of our radio-gatherings, all our school activities are also available for anyone we decide to include and everyone else who decides to listen in.
*note on exclusivity: hopefully the Radio School can be accessible and valuable for its participants, for its extended communities, for its liquid-shadow-hang-arounds, for its strangers.
🌀a kind of archive
A background story: the Radio School was born with a twin sibling - a digital resource library and archive that offers access to material that have somehow been part of the LungA School cosmos.
All Radio School broadcasts will be archived and accessible - and it will be possible for participants to both use and contribute to the library. The ways to access and activate this ongoing archive are open to be invented.
SOME INFORMAL PROPERTIES:
🌀the radio is always there
All participants can, at any point, start broadcasting. Radio is sometimes just a room you enter. Alone or with others. Smaller or larger gatherings. A conversation. A reading group. A morning gesture. A waiting room (a threshold to a waiting room)
🌀there will be others
The Seyðisfjörður Community Radio will also be used, occupied and contaminated by other radio makers not connected to the Radio School - an impure and somewhat random stream singing a plural hymn.
🌀we have lost the keys
All participants are welcome to include whomever they want, within their local/analogue/digital proximity, in their school participation.
Questions (FAQ)
Here we will do our best to give some direction to potential questions - hopefully it gives a sense of clarity. If you’re sitting with more/other questions, you are always welcome to contact us.
🩸What does the schedule look like?
Like a rhythm - a subtle rhythm upon which other nodes may find their way, other sounds and rhythms might interfere or resonate.
What that means is: we meet twice a week On Air:
Monday gatherings which are shorter sessions for sharing the week's schedule and other practicalities. We all take turns hosting these.
Thursday sessions which will differ from week to week, alternating between
workshops,
readings,
exhibitions,
sharings,
experiments
and more.
Beyond those scheduled radio-gatherings, all participants can at any point arrange other activities or simply start broadcasting.
🩸How do we deal with time zone? (see also ‘properties’)
Most likely our time zones are slightly incompatible, so this is something we will work with (and around) during the programme. As a starting point we imagine that Monday gatherings will have a fixed time while Thursdays are more flexible according to the activity, who’s hosting, and other considerations. All other broadcasts that might appear will be planned by those initiating.
All broadcasts will be archived and thus available to listen to when possible.
🩸Do I need radio equipment to receive and transmit?
To participate in the Radio School you basically just need an internet connection and a device (computer/phone/tablet) that allows you to listen on Seydisfjordur Community Radio. Broadcasting can be done on the same device without additional equipment needed.
In order to have a few more functions when broadcasting it is advised to have a small sound card, a good microphone and some good headphones - we can be helpful with advice and tutorials for doing basic setup - Radio should be really easy to make so we are intentionally working with as little equipment as possible.
When we have broadcasts where we are multiple participants from different locations (like our weekly gatherings), we will take care of the technical aspects of that.
🩸Who is this for?
The LungA Radio School is for anyone who wants to respond to our invitation. It is a decentralized school that happens in and from the situation of each participant. English would be our common language but this does not exclude the possibility of contributions in other tongues.
🩸Is everything on the radio? (note on communication)
Well, yes - or at least almost everything! Radio is (of course) what makes a radio school possible - but it also makes other things possible within the radio school due to some of the particular qualities of radio (described elsewhere as: magic of the radio room - the intimacy of a community of listeners - the attention in conversation).
So the school primarily exists on the radio.
But as all things tend to overflow their own boundaries, the Radio School will undoubtedly overflow the boundaries of radio. Already from the beginning it seeps out as we will have a separate text-based channel for daily communication and for sharing various kinds of more or less practical info as we go along.
And once we begin: what activities and communications that will start happening inside the Radio School, but outside the radio is of course entirely impossible to predict.
🩸What does the tuition fee cover?
It covers all content and school activities like, workshops, lectures, critiques, individual conversations, readings and texts, guest appearances, commissions, performances etc.
It also covers access to all platforms and digital facilities needed to be part of the program
it does not cover individual gear and additional software
🩸What does it mean to meet on the radio?
Sometimes it means we all actively participate through a shared platform
Sometimes it means simply to listen
Sometimes it means we meet in smaller groups On Air
Sometimes it means to have a writing or reading session while listening to a commissioned work
And certainly more, we haven't discovered.
🩸Will I listen to the radio all the time?
We see it like this - to decide to apply and be making this Radio School, is to dedicate ourselves to listening and attending to a sound-cosmos. We will be tuning into this world in many kinds of ways, practicing and experimenting with modes of listening and school-making over radio.
(You will listen to quite a lot of radio)
🩸How do I participate in the LungA Radio School?
As we see it you can participate in two ways, besides simply using our platforms and broadcasts in any way you find interesting/generative/regenerative: (1) You can APPLY (link) to be a part of the program as a participant / co-host / school maker. (2) You can SUBSCRIBE (link) as a “listener” where you will receive broadcast notifications + monthly letters with excerpts from activities and access to archived content.
Epilog
Thank you for staying in this text with us
This is where we leave you
- correction - this is where we merge.
In re-writing this text
In holding and shaping the echoes of an impulse
Maybe even On Air - - 👂