Date 4/27/08
Affiliation
Neighborhood Public Radio recently completed its first 5 year plan, dedicated to access in excess, and a critique of the limited public radio options available in the United States. Since the first broadcast in January of 2004, they have developed programming with communities around the world, taught people to build their own transmitters, experimented very publicly with transmission as an artistic medium in the Bay Area, and most recently managed to bring the original critique of National Public Radio to their board members and their airwaves. Some recent experiments have included workshops on television transmitter building and circuit bending with an ecological concern. After their success at the Whitney Biennial they consider themselves at a crossroads. “Perhaps we need a new 5 year plan. Perhaps we need a 1 year plan. Maybe we need a new directive. Maybe we’re done.” They will present their history and recent projects, and in keeping to their collaborative process, they will ask the audience… What next?
Neighborhood Public Radio (NPR), founded 2004 by multimedia artists and educators Lee Montgomery, Jon Brumit and Michael Trigilio, acts as a traveling band of guerrilla broadcasters. NPR personnel have hosted thematic broadcasts far and wide including in many galleries in San Francisco, at Chicago’s Version 5 Festival (2005) and San Jose’s Zero1 Festival (2006) as well as projects in Europe. One of these was in Serbia where, funded by a grant from CEC Artslink, NPR worked with media organization kuda.org. Enabled by a Creative Work Fund Grant, NPR collaborated in a series of projects titled Radio Cartography in partnership with San Francisco’s Southern Exposure Gallery. Neighborhood Public Radio has been named “Best Super Local Radio Station” by San Francisco Magazine and has been featured in Punk Planet magazine, Artforum, Women’s Wear Daily, and the Chicago Reader.
-- As of 4/27/08