With Shortwave Collective, at Struer Tracks biennial for sound and listening, Denmark, 23-27 August 2023.
 

​Open Wave-Receiver is an artistic research project that uses found materials to create self-powered radio receivers, opening access to sounds travelling on the invisible electromagnetic waves surrounding us. The radio receivers are built in their simplest form and have only a small number of interchangeable parts: a coil, an antenna, a ground, a diode, and a way to listen. Designed without a tuner, the radios are open to multiple frequencies.

Throughout Struer Tracks biennial, Living Radio Lab invited visitors into the process of developing, experimenting and listening with Open Wave-Receivers, to notice the fragile, uncertain pluralities of radio-listening within the interconnectedness of different spaces, bodies, and materials. This way, rather than focusing on content, clarity or strength of signal, the work tended to the systems, infrastructures and ecologies that radio is a part of.

 

Each day began with a discussion, unthinking radio together, broadcast via micro-FM. This was followed by an open lab where, as a collective and with others, we experimented with designs for DIY radio devices. We used e-waste from Bang & Olufsen, kit lent by the local OZ3EDR radio club, and found materials in these endeavours. We tried various recipes for amplifiers, made earpieces, AM radio transmitters and receivers. We closed the day with a listening session, testing our radios around Struer, and live streaming sounds for those in the lab and beyond.

Our time in Struer also included a discussion with The Lake Radio, a workshop for local kids, and an evening event inviting visitors on a walk to a site where DIY radio devices transmitted sounds from a live hydrophone, sea to shore.