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r a d i o q u a l i a Related page:
Radio Astronomy radioqualia
Established in 1998 in
Australia, radioqualia is an
artist collective cofounded
by Honor Harger and Adam
Hyde, both from New
Zealand.

Individuals:
Radioqualia
Bertolt Brecht
John Cage
Karlheinz Stockhausen

Themes:
Media Arts
Radio
Telecommunication
URSA observatory, Helsinki, Finland Telematics
Sound
radioqualia straightaway present Radio Astronomy as a conceptual art project aiming Audio Art
to make the supposed silence of outer space audible. The artist collective, therefore,
Conceptual Art
invites us to consider this project from the critical position adopted by conceptual art.
Internet
But what makes it critical ? In questioning the very notion of art. Always a precursor,
Music
Duchamp already set the tone quite some time ago: ideas and meaning have
preeminence over form and matter. In short conceptual art questions the sacred status
of the work of art as a unique object — with its fetish allure — that assigns it a place Artwork:
within the consumer market logic. The fact that the term "conceptual art" and Radio Astronomy
"dematerialization" entered the art vocabulary during the same period tellingly
summarizes the thought of many conceptual artists. External links:
Radio Astronomy :
It is clear why the project Radio Astronomy fits perfectly within this artistic movement. http://radioqualia.va.com.au/documentation...
To intercept sounds from space and to transmit them directly via internet or radio VIRAC:
waves — and to qualify this activity as art — definitively overthrows the traditional status http://www.virac.lv/
of the work of art. Nothing to see, nothing to sell. No object, but only an experience in Radioqualia:
the etymological sense of the word: "direct observation or participation in events as a http://www.radioqualia.net
basis of knowledge" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary). radioqualia affirms that the data Karlheinz Stockhausen:
that we gather in listening to space is as important and significant for the http://www.stockhausen.org/
understanding of the universe as visual observation. What is more, the scientific
perception of radioastronomy is largely based on visual data (graphic visualizations,
diagrams etc.). But space turns out to be quite noisy: planets, stars, and nebula all have
their own sonic signature. And who has heard the sounds emanating from these
cosmic objects?

The title Radio Astronomy must be taken literally: a radio station that is dedicated to
the interception and transmission of sounds from space. In tuning into the different
celestial frequencies the listener may hear planetary noises and cosmic hissing. This
project, whose intentions are after all quite simple, nevertheless requires the
participation of collaborators. Characterized by a flexible and mobile structure,
radioqualia associates itself, depending on the nature of its projects, with artists,
scientists and various organizations. For the present project the audio data will be
collected by the Windward Community College Radio Observatory (WCC) in Hawaii, USA,
and the Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre (VIRAC) in Irbene, Latvia. It will
also count on the collaboration of the Radio Jove network to increase the number of
radio telescopes and consequently the audio material.

Radio Astronomy consists in hooking the out line of a radiotelescope to a computer

which then sends the audio signal to an internet streaming server. The intercepted
sounds can be transmitted in realtime on the internet and accessed through a website.
They can also be picked up by radio on FM, AM and SW. Finally, the sound sources can
be presented in the form of a gallery installation. The Radio Astronomy website will
provide information on the conceptual and aesthetic aspects of the project. An
innovative experiment stands out in this protean project. In collaboration with the
telecommunications engineer Richard Wenner, radioqualia is seeking to set up a
temporary planetary wireless network by "bouncing" a standard internet signal off the
moon's surface, this will result in a data network that will cover the earth's diameter. The
VIRAC radio telescope will be used as a transmitter and the moon as a mirror so that the
signal can be relayed to earth. The transmission can therefore spread well beyond the
geographical limits of its source. Any user equipped with wireless internet access will
be able to hook into this planetary network. This aspect of the project is particularly
pertinent in that it highlights the growing importance of wireless networks as a new
transmission medium for artistic projects. According to radioqualia, the underlying idea
or aim — inspired by Brecht — is to transform the user into a producer and to find an
alternative for traditional telecommunications networks. As Brecht states in his text The
Radio as an Apparatus of Communication (1927): " ... here is a positive suggestion:
change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the
finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is
to say it would be if we knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the
listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating
him. On this principle the radio should step out of the supply business and organize its
listeners as suppliers." (1) Let us not forget that for Brecht all artistic activity has a
didactic purpose

According to the project's instigators, Radio Astronomy has affinities with Pierre
Schaeffer's musique concrète — who taught us that the sound object exists in the ear
of the listener — and the experimentations of, among others, John Cage and Karlheinz
Stockhausen. The theoretical positions upheld by these pionneers have allowed us to
perceive a priori non-musical sound as being music. John Cage is best known for his
revolutionary ideas on silence, form, time and chance as an element of composition. As
early as 1937 he wrote "I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and
increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments" (2)
And in an even more contemporary vein: "Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly
noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating." (3)
For his part Stockhausen affirmed that technological instruments such as
microphones, transmitters and recordings are effectively musical instruments. In other
words, sounds that are usually perceived as being non-musical can be transformed into
music thanks to the intervention of a musician or a sound artist. Furthermore, in using
digital detritus in a creative way by making aesthetic use of glitches, contemporary
avant-garde music also provides a fertile reference for the project by encouraging us to
appreciate noise in a musical context. Finally, and this seems most appropriate, Radio
Astronomy can be viewed as the rehabilitation of the poetic resonance of the "music of
the spheres" as put forward by the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Jacques Perron © 2003 FDL

(1) Brecht, Bertolt. "The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication" in Radiotext (e). Ed. Neil Straus s .
New York: Semiotext (e), 1993. 15-17.
(2) John Cage, Silence , Hanover: Wes leyan Univers ity Pres s , 1961. p. 3.
(3) Ibid.

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