Radio Arts

History

Radio Arts started as South London Radio Arts in 2001 by radio lecturer, producer and artist Magz Hall and DJ musician and producer Jim Backhouse with the to promote radio arts activity across London via Community Radio Stations. The core group relocated and expanded its practice across the South East since 2009 with current members in Canterbury, Margate, Folkestone, Whitstable and London.

Past activities

In 2002 the group received an Awards For All grant enabling them to put over 200 artists on the You Are Hear radio show broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM for five years. You Are Hear www.youarehear.co.uk was a highly successful arts and music radio show heard weakly on Resonance FM resonancefm.com then on demand at www.totallyradio.com until 2010.

The You Are Hear podcast was downloaded by over a million users showcasing highlights from its excellent live archive of new music, festival specials and concerts receiving critical acclaim in The Independent in 2008, Time Out, The Wire and other publications. feeds.feedburner.com/youarehear

The group curated a sound exhibition in 2005, ‘Circle of Sound’ and live music events and a fundraising album ‘Flatpack Antenna’ raised over £5000 pounds for Resonance FM.

In 2006 SLRA was awarded an ESF Fast Forward Grant and an Awards For All grant to run a series of radio art workshops in 2006 at the Albany Centre Deptford London, the work was then broadcast on Resonance FM. In 2007 they compiled a CD compilation showcasing five years of live radio sessions from the You Are Hear show on the station.

In 2009 they became Radio Arts, the groups founder Magz Hall curated a Radio Art Symposium Reinventing the Dial at Canterbury Christ Church University and a series of micro radio art installations at the Old Lookout Gallery 2011/12 and radio interactions at the Whitstable Satellite 2012 and exhibited her work internationally.

Future Plans of the Group

To secure funding for a number of key radio art commissions, events and workshops in the South East. We also hope to gain funding to update the website which is now outdated and allow us to showcase new radio arts works and projects. Thanks to Theo Sykes, Richard Guest and Marc Everett who have created the artwork for the groups projects since its inception and Patrick who made the original SLRA site and Damian for the You Are Hear site.

Core Members biogs

Magz Hall is a senior radio lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University where she has set up an Expanded Radio Research Group. A practicing Sound and Radio Artist she was a founding producer who was part of the steering group who set up Resonance 104.4 FM as a community arts station (1998- 2007). She successfully lobbed for Community Radio in the UK and sat as a council member as a director of the Community Media Association (1998 – 2000). She is currently completing a practice based PhD on radio Art at CRISAP crisap.org University of the Arts London "Radio After Radio: Redefining Radio Art in the light of new media technology" considers expanded radio practice. A co producer of the You Are Hear Radio programme, Magz has run many radio events and radio art workshops with Jim Backhouse. Her own audio and radio work has been exhibited in the British Museum, MACBA Barcelona, the Lightworks Festival and the Deep Wireless Festival in Toronto Canada and worldwide on the ether. Her Radio Art Practice blog is magzhall.wordpress.com

Jim Backhouse is a freelance writer, radio broadcaster, producer and musician based in Canterbury with numerous releases across a variety of independent labels. He is also a prominent member of the Kosmische collective, promoting cutting edge electronic music events since 1996. He also self released two Xylitol albums which have received well deserved critical attention and has worked with Magz Hall on many radio art projects since 2002.
xylitolmusic.blogspot.co.uk

Tim Pickup and Nicola Schauerman are Margate based digital artists who produce work together under the name Genetic Moo.
Tim produced and presented the ground breaking sonic art series ‘Audio Adventures in Science Pseudoscience & Nonsense’ tinyurl.com/aqn9fz6 broadcast and podcast on Resonance FM and has collaborated on several Radio Arts projects.
Since 2008 they have been developing a series of interactive video installations of beguiling & unsettling creatures, combining elements of the human and the animal. Choreographed video clips respond in a variety of life-like ways to user motion and touch. The works are driven using open source software and webcams and can be easily adapted to different locations. Their work has been exhibited extensively including the De La Warr Pavilion (2010); Watermans (2010) The Wellcome Collection (2011) and Glastonbury (2011). One of the works, Starfish received a John Lansdown Award for Interactive Digital Art at Eurographics (2007).
www.geneticmoo.com

Alex Mitchell is a professional musician and engineer based in South London he has been involved with the group as a radio engineer since 2002.

For more info please email Magz or Jim at youarehear (@) hotmail.co.uk