Last winter, France experienced the longest strike in its modern history. Launched in opposition to a pension reform project, the strikers’ demands very quickly joined the sectors already struggling in a deleterious socio-economic context: health, justice, university, transport, energy, arts, education and media converged in the streets with the  gilets jaunes  aka yellow vests that had been demonstrating and occupying roundabouts for more than a year. Many alliances were formed: lawyers took up the song of the yellow vests, strikers from Radio France investigated a strike by cleaning women, queer collectives defended a striking bus driver fired for homophobic insult, even artists joined the procession, that preceded the unions in the streets and formed the majority of the demonstrations. This social movement is a multitude that agrees on one thing: to get rid of Macron and his world. Only the containment due to the coronavirus will put an end to this political sequence, and the reform will finally be suspended.This episode of Radia is a subjective attempt to put this moment in sound. Recordings made during demonstrations, sound creation and political reflections are mixed to illustrate the bubbling political atmosphere and sonic environment of this period.

Interventions: Judith Butler : « On Demonstrating Precarity » – 2015 Michel Foucault : « Interview at the Université Catholique of Louvain » – 1981 Michel Foucault : « Debate with Noam Chomsky on Human Nature » – 1971 Hakim Bey : « Waiting for Revolution » in T.A.Z – 1991, read by Stephanie Boubli & DinahBird

Thanks to : Léa Roger, Méryll Ampe, BSP Barbès, Miliani, Sarah, Lola.

Photo : Annabelle Salvan

Nicolas Montgermont is a sound and radio artist who explores the physicality of waves in its different forms. For more than 15 years, he has been designing artistic devices that explore the poetic essence of waves: reality of waves in a volume, vibration of materials, richness of invisible radio landscapes, musicality of noises, antenna sculpture, listening and broadcasting territory… and is currently developing a work on the links between radio-art and politics. He makes sound performances, installations, records and compositions, alone or in collaboration (chdh, Art of Failure, Cécile Beau, RYBN, Pali Meursault…) and participates in several sound and radio creation collectives (∏node, Yi King Operators, les Sons Fédérés, Jef Klak, l’Acentrale). His projects have been shown in many art centers, museums, concert halls and self-managed venues in Europe and elsewhere. He teaches sound and multimedia creation at the ENS Louis Lumière and at Paris 8.

Show 0795: A Radiophonic Quilt (Wave Farm WGXC 90.7-FM)

Writes Karen Werner, "To make this radiophonic quilt, programmers at Wave Farm’s radio station WGXC came together for a day to make short radio art pieces about RADIO. We approached this theme in an imaginative, associative and at times literal way: radio as invisible waves, as a metaphor for communication and longing for community, as nostalgic soundscape, as a relationship between senders and receivers, as an amazing little box."

Quilt sections in order of presentation:
An SOS from Planet Earth by Liz LoGiudice
The Mountain Blocks the Signal by Alanna Medlock
Continue by Paulus Van Horne
Tableaux Drawing by Max Goldfarb
WGXC Piece by Thatcher Keats
Radia Segment by Tom Roe

Threads and borders throughout the quilt: Gardens of Discordantia by Heather Martin
Voicemails 1 and 2 by Sam Sebren
Edited interview with Garrett Roche
Edited interview with Carline Murphy
Edited interview with Azouke Legba
plus samples from the quilt sections above

A Radiophonic Quilt will broadcast on the 30 international stations that comprise the Radia network, June 22 – 28, 2020, Season 44, Episode 18.

A Radiophonic Quilt was collectively produced as part of a Wave Farm Radio Art Workshop led by Karen Werner, the 2019/2020 Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellow, who sewed the quilt together. Many thanks to the whole Wave Farm crew for organizing this event and to everyone who participated. And to Radia for creating an international broadcast platform for radio art.