the conference participants

The people who attended the Radio Without Boundaries conference, in fact the many Deep Wireless events NAISA held all month long, are VERY committed to the idea of radio art, soundscaping, all kinds of names for it. What do YOU call it? Despite the fact that it’s pretty far removed from the mainstream, it’s got fans and practitioners from all over the world. There were producers and artists at the conference from Australia, Austria, England, Germany and elsewhere. However, very few attendees from Toronto, or Canada at all for that matter. Which surprised me, I had imagined that the city was actually interested in the whole thing, but even CKLN, though they support the festival and the conference enormously, isn’t the hotbed of radio art it once was.

Anyway, I have to admit I found the panel discussions pretentious and boring, just people talking about themselves and how they create. They make up all kinds of art terms for what they’re doing, but to me it’s just not as precious as all that. I did enjoy meeting and talking with some of them though, Jim Whelton (look up "Harmon e Phrasyar on the Resonance FM site) was particularly fun. He seemed receptive to where we were at, but I’m sure some of the others thought my approach wasn’t up to their high standards of bullshit. Nevertheless, we got nothing but positive feedback for the Osama show, and since Darren and Nadene invited us, they obviously appreciate how our thing fits in to the total audio-art universe. So I don’t care what the seriosos thought of me.