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Roger Roger Do You Copy : Radio as Art Workshop with Martín Rodríguez

Radio as Art workshop

Saturday, May 10, 12–3 pm
PAVED Arts Production Centre, 424 20th St. W. Saskatoon

Combining theoretical and practical skills, this workshop aims to familiarize participants with the idea of radio as a medium for making art. This 3-hour workshop supplies participants with a zine “Radio Art: Electromagnetic Fieldnotes” designed by Martín Rodríguez (VE2MXN) as an inspirational guide to the diverse practices that artists have explored utilizing radio.

Together, we will explore audiovisual examples along with texts by radio artists to attempt to define and understand the medium. From a practical perspective,  we will also build a quick and simple AM transmitter. Additionally, participants are encouraged to bring their own radios as well as noise-making devices (small synths, pedals, field recordings, etc) as we will explore different unconventional broadcast techniques.

PAVED will supply the materials for building the simple electronic components. PAVED will have devices available to share, but participants may want to bring: 

  1. A sound-making device with a 3.5 mm audio output jack like a smartphone, mp3 player, or a laptop
  2. An AM radio for listening to your broadcast signal

$10 supply fee for members, $40 for non-members. Purchase/renew your membership here. Sign up for the workshop by filling out the form below.

Registration Form
Martín Rodríguez headshot

Artist Bio

As a transmission and sound artist, Martín Rodríguez’s work emerges from his Chicanx upbringing along the Arizona-Mexico border. He employs performance, intervention, and installation as a process for deciphering aural histories and entangled identities.

After recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor, a chance encounter with a radio transmission caught in the pickup coils of his guitar reoriented Rodríguez. Developing his practice from crisis, he examines radio as a transformative medium. Rooting his relationship with radio in healing, his artworks consider transmission as a material through which sound intertwines with affect, acting as a vessel for ulterior forms of communication.

Notably, his work has been presented by the Musée d’art contemporain Montréal (CA), Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MX), daphne (CA), Walking Festival for Sound (UK/PL), Spektrum (DE), as well as various festivals and performance venues across Canada, and the US.