FWD:---------------------------------------------------->>>
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 01:29:52 +0100 (BST)
From: joe banks <joe2banks@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: questions
To: republikasleazka@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: rasa@xxxxxxxx

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QUESTIONAIRE: ACOUSTIC SPACE LAB SYMPOSIUM & PARTICIPANTS
http://acoustic.space.re-lab.net | http://www.gracies.org/spacelab

----------------------------questionaire begins here---->>>

*Your name and nationality, if you please...*

Joe Banks, UK

*List an URL and a short description of a recent
project.*

www.ashinternational.com

*What is your experience of working with radio waves?*

Conducting, writing about and publishing LP and CD
recordings of natural radio experiments with medium
and longwave AM receivers (1995), home-brew long-wire
e-field VLF receivers, earth antennas and amplified
trees and fences (1996), an E/VLF geomagnetic-field
induction loop antenna (1997), and membership of
INSPIRE and participation in their Ischochnik/ Ariel
laser antenna experiment on space station MIR (1996).
Recording, writing about and publishing recordings of
solar radio noise (1995-1996). Experiments with VLF
radio recording of ferromagnetic hysteresis (2000). 

Gallery exhibitions of the "National Grid"
(1997-2001), "Ghost Shells" (1997-2000), "Artificial
Lightning" (1999-2001), "Theophany" (2000-2001) and
"Stargate" (1999-2001) radio noise installations.
Performing with live radio interference from mains
electricity, MIG and TIG welding equipment (operated
by Rob Mullender), photographic flash guns and various
forms of electric rail and industrial and I.T.
hardware (1996-2001). Live and recorded work using
radio noise (as above) in collaboration with
electronic composers, live musicians, remixers etc
(1997-2001).

Writing the "Antiphony Architectural Supplement"
(1999) and "Blackout" (1999-2000) texts and lectures
about physiological and psychological aspects of
military early warning systems. Writing several
versions of an article called "Rorschach Audio" on the
psychoacoustics of listening to distorted broadcast
speech, published by Ash International (1999), Sonic
Arts Network (2000) and Leonardo Music Journal / MIT
Press (2001)...

"Tuning down into the lowest reaches of the radio
spectrum, particularly in night's shadow of the solar
wind, the listener encounters a range of diverse
phenomena, opening a window on a world alive with
electrical activity. Whistling atmospherics from
lightning and thermonuclear EMP ricochet along field
lines of the magnetosphere, bouncing between
hemispheres of the globe: storms crackle: biostatics
whisper, hiss, and sigh: televisions scream: pylons
and power loops drone and roar: military signals, the
musical pulses of navigation systems, timecodes, and
coded data broadcast deep beneath the sea. Time and
space divided, live 'vivisection' of particle physics,
voices, map lines, weapons, mirrors hidden by the
illusion of quiet." - Disinformation "R&D" Ash 2.9 CD
1996

"While solar flares either dissipate in space or are
drawn back to the surface of the sun, plasma
shock-waves surge outward, increasing the velocity of
the solar wind. On impact the earth's magnetosphere
warps like a tennis ball being hit with a hammer.
Powerlines blow as DC transients induce in AC grids
and submarine cables: ionospheric disruption distorts
or obliterates radio communications, GPS reception and
TV: satellites malfunction and drift off course:
impulses in astronauts' nerves misfire: aurora
intensify in the sky: whistling atmospherics echo
across the nightside of the globe: it has even been
argued that electrical accumulations in the metal
structures of gas-pipelines and petrochemicals storage
have caused explosions claiming hundreds of lives.
While this coronal mass ejection may take anything
from 6 to 40 hours to reach earth, its emergence
through the upper layers of the sun's atmosphere
'rattles' local plasma exciting a radio emission which
reaches earth at the speed of light." - Disinformation
"Stargate" LP 1996

"Pulsing sub-bass audio suggests associations with the
most primal anthropomorphic element in music - the
rhythms of the human heart, with foetal and infant
hypnagogic sense memories, with seismic activity, the
rumble of thunder (Jimi Hendrix claimed that his
earliest childhood memory was of a thunderstorm), and
even with war. Disinformation's National Grid is a
sub-bass installation sourced either from the ambient
VLF field radiated by electricity pylons and mains
circuits, or, more recently, directly from the output
cables of mains transformers. National Grid offers
live physical evidence of environmental
electromagnetic pollution, a demonstration of the
intrinsic musical properties of alternating current,
beat-frequency effects, the architectural acoustics of
its own exhibition space, a formula for the
realisation and suppression of Futurist sound art, a
cathartic response to the pressures of urban life, a
monolithic soundtrack for the genius of
electrification and for the bitter conflicts between
government and organised labour for political control
over supplies to the nation's electrical
infrastructure." - Disinformation "National Grid" 1996
(text written 1999)

*Given that they literally surround us every moment of
our life, are radio waves (and their contents) in the
public domain?*

This is a very interesting and complex question. To
all intents and purposes written words also surround
most of us for most of our lives, but their
near-ubiquity does not affect the fact that written
words only enter the public domain after their author
has died. In contrast the sky also surrounds us and is
therefore ultimately the property of no-one, but few
would disagree that a photograph of the sky is
definitely the property of the person who took it.
Since copyright protection exists automatically from
the moment any work is created, very little work by
living authors can be regarded as public domain. While
everyone is obviously free to listen to pretty much
anything they like, once they are made recordings of
natural radio signals are no less subject to the
spirit and letter of copyright / intellectual property
law as any other form of artistic concept, wildlife
recording, documentary photograph, film, corporate
identity, painting, printing, trademark, musical
composition, performance or publishing (whose
provenance confers rights to their author irrespective
of whether those works were broadcast on an open
system or distributed by any other means).

At least in the UK private telecommunications (even,
perhaps especially, those broadcast by radio) are not
public domain... so much so that New Scientist
magazine reports that intercepts are controlled by no
less than four separate Acts of Parliament - two
Wireless Telegraphy Acts, the Telecommunications Act
and the Interception of Communications Act, and that
penalties for eavesdropping are "unlimited fines and
up to two years in jail" (an obvious proviso is that
there may be situations in which individuals
deliberately wish to break the law). While these
examples by no means describe every possible scenario
alluded to by the question, it would be foolish to be
naive about the number of situations in which radio
waves and their content are NOT in the public domain.

*As Erik Davis has noted in his writings, a great deal
of the 19th century utopianism which was projected
onto emerging communications technology of that era
(telegraph, telephone, wireless, radio) has now been
reassociated with emerging communications technology
of our own era (satellite, internet, wireless, laser).
Where do you think this utopianism falls short, and
what should a socially-conscious artist, activist or
scientist take into consideration to address this?*

Utopianism is extremely important because (although
inherently naive) given enough willpower, hard work,
argument and good luck idealistic ideas always have
the potential to become self-fulfilling prophecies.
However it's important to remember for example that
the degree of gullibility shown by even hard-nosed
(sic) economists and venture capitalists with respect
to the potential of the internet has been so extreme
as to have nearly wrecked the world economy several
times. Socially-conscious individuals are no less
guilty of self-deception when it comes to discussing
technology, so my belief is that such people would be
well advised to make practical use of whatever
situations or technologies arise in the here and now,
while being cautious about taking over-optimistic
predictions at face value. 

*What do you hear when you listen to the internet?*

I never listen to the internet

*Although internet bandwidth is (largely) a commercial
service, and can therfore be logically bought and
sold, bandwidth in the electromagnetic spectrum is a
natural phenomenon. Certain areas of this spectrum are
highly regulated, while other areas remain an 'open
frontier'. Are there realistic strategies to take
advantage of this natural communications resource and
expand the social and geographic range of connectivity
and communications?*

The only strategies I am aware of are pirate
broadcasts and clockwork radio, which work by
broadcasting within the narrow spectrum that most
listeners already have the right equipment to receive,
or by providing potential listeners with equipment
that they can operate for free. Any strategy that
exploits inaccessible parts of the spectrum or uses
inaccessible technology is inherently useless to all
but small cliques.

*Does webstreaming technology 'improve' on radio
technology? Or, conversely, is it redundant to
replicate 'radio' on the internet?*

Webstreaming technology improves on radio where radio
lacks the broadcast power to reach particular
audiences. In many other circumstances radio is (by
virtue of cost, convenience, accessibility and
reliability) a superior medium. In many cases the
awesome power of the internet for disseminating
information and relatively low cost of broadcasting
web-streamed programmes has to be balanced against the
relatively high costs involved in actually receiving
them.

*Please give a short outline of your potential
contribution to the Acoustic.Space.Lab symposium,
either as a remote participant or directly in Latvia.*

As above


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