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LA><ART Sound
Brendan Threadgill Jan 20 - Mar 3, 2007
“Mia Kara” Numbers Station
LA><ART SOUND engages the entryway as a project space for imbedded sound experiments featuring looping and extended ambient works, conceptual projects, and site specific interpretations of the gallery and street to be played continuously at regular intervals. |
Press Release | download PDF
LA><SOUND presents: “Mia Kara” Numbers Station Continuous shortwave radio broadcast January 20 – March 3, 2007 LA><SOUND is pleased to announce a new work for radio by Brendan Threadgill. Extending the context of the LA><SOUND format, we will present a live and continuous shortwave radio broadcast created by the artist and transmitted from overseas. The broadcast, titled “Mia Kara” Numbers Station after an Esperanto folk song, is based on espionage practices employed by governments in their attempts to undermine adversarial nation-states. As Threadgill explains in his statement: [number stations] traditionally consists of a series of spoken numbers, tones, and clips from folk songs. These broadcasts proliferated during the Cold War and since the demise of the Soviet Union have actually increased. While there is ample evidence to support the theory of state-sponsored clandestine activity, these transmissions could easily be sound artifacts with no intended audience, no message being sent (secret or otherwise), or perhaps placeholders for future “actual” communication. By employing the arcane and ultimately anachronistic international language of Esperanto, “Mia Kara” embodies the coded nature of traditional number stations while shifting their content towards past and future utopian ends. The “Mia Kara” Numbers Station broadcast is superficially indistinguishable from its state- sponsored model, pointing to a strategy of inhabitation and subtle disruption that produces a work both quixotic and generative. Brendan Threadgill (1978 - ) lives and works in Los Angeles. He holds BFA in studio practice from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is nearing completion of his MFA at California Institute of the Arts. He is also a former Fulbright Fellow to Ukraine and has contributed writings to artUS magazine. LA><SOUND engages the entryway as a project space for imbedded sound experiments featuring looping and extended ambient works, conceptual projects, and site specific interpretations of the gallery and street to be played continuously at regular intervals. The space - a 100 square foot portal in front of the gallery - consists of two white panel walls, a bisecting ramp and handrail, a large wall of glass and a glass doorway with the LA><ART logo. A single outdoor speaker has been installed in the ceiling of this portal and awaits activation by creative content. LA><SOUND operates on both a commission and proposal basis. Project reviews will occur periodically throughout the year, reviewed by a panel of distinguished curators in the fields of sound, architecture and contemporary art. Please send project proposals, CVs and CDs to the attention of:
Tim Ivison 
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