The FM Ferry Experiment Live Broadcast From The Staten Island Ferry

Note from CVB: An artist friend from Boston sent me this information. Recently while driving in Staten Island Russell and I saw a sign that said "neuroTransmitter" with an arrow pointing down a road. We both looked at each other and said, "What is that?" Well, now we know.

The FM Ferry Experiment Live Broadcast From The Staten Island Ferry

Concept and programming by: neuroTransmitter (Valerie Tevere + Angel Nevarez)

September 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 - 2007
12 - 4 pm EST (NYC)

On-Air:
WSIA 88.9FM
http://www.fmferryexperiment.net

In-Studio:
Hurricane Deck of the
Staten Island Ferry
reached via:
Whitehall Terminal -- 1 Whitehall St. Manhattan
St. George Terminal - 1 Bay St.
Staten Island

For eight days in September, neuroTransmitter presents The FM Ferry Experiment, a project which transforms the Staten Island Ferry into a floating radio station, broadcasting out to the NYC region as it continuously travels between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan.

In 1967, The New York Avant-Garde Festival (1963-1980) founded by Charlotte Moorman, landed on the Staten Island Ferry for 24-hours. In the spirit of this festival, The FM Ferry Experiment integrates broadcast and performance into one of New York's most traveled public spaces, expanding its architecture out into the airwaves, engaging publics on the ferry and on-the-air.

Live programs consisting of performances, lectures, and conversations will take place on the Staten Island Ferry, and will be broadcast along with music, sound, and ambient noise via WSIA 88.9 FM and http://www.fmferryexperiment.net

In-studio performances and appearances by:
31 Down, Dafne Boggeri, Ralf Homann, Jesal Kapadia & Sreshta Premnath, Tianna Kennedy, Emily Jacir & Jamal Rayyis, Edward Miller, School of Missing Studies with Peter Ferko, Xaviera Simmons, Brooke Singer & Brian Rigney Hubbard, Sandra Skurvida, Alex Villar, Bojidar Yanev

Audio works by:
Julieta Aranda, Fia Backström, Mark & Stephen Beasley, Wiebe E. Bijker, Bik Van der Pol, Nao Bustamante, Paul Chan, free103point9, Wynne Greenwood & K8 Hardy, Maryam Jafri, Hassan Khan, Fabiano Kueva, Brandon LaBelle, Pedro Lasch with Thomas Lasch & Audio Wizards, Cristóbal Lehyt, LIGNA, Lana Lin, Jill Magid with Ed Vas, Naeem Mohaiemen, Antoni Muntadas, Max Neuhaus, Phill Niblock, Carsten Nicolai, Jenny Perlin, Cesare Pietroiusti, Radio Sonideros (Sara Harris, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, Keren Ness, Clare Robbins), Steve Roden, Marina Rosenfeld, Kristen Roos & Jackson 2Bears, Martha Rosler, Scanner, Hanna Rose Shell & Luke Fischbeck, Jason Simon,
Skyline, Judi Werthein

Plus further socio-spatial experimentation, conversations, news bulletins, music, archival broadcasts, and sing-alongs…

neurotransmitter - Initiated in 2001 by Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere as a project whose work fuses conceptual practices with transmission, sound performance, and mobile broadcast. Their work re-articulates radio in multiple contexts considering new possibilities for the broadcast spectrum as public space. Recent projects include: WUNP, unitednationsplaza, Berlin, Germany; The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore; The New Museum, NY; viafarini, Milan, Italy; The Anna Akhmatova Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; Govett Brewster Museum, NZ; Centre d'Art Passerelle, Brest, France; and Museu da Imagem e do Som, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tevere is an artist and Associate Professor of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island, CUNY. Nevarez is an artist, DJ, and musician.

WSIA 88.9 FM was founded in the mid-1970s by a group of students at The College of Staten Island, CUNY who ran some wire to the cafeteria and started spinning records. They then applied for a license and have been broadcasting regularly since August 31, 1981. For over 25 years WSIA has featured a variety of programming, and the CSI students who run the station have always been committed to being new and innovative, and serving the Staten Island and Greater New York community. WSIA broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week over the air and online at http://www.wsia.fm

The FM Ferry Experiment is produced in cooperation with the New York City Department of Transportation and WSIA 88.9FM; and has been made possible in part by The National Endowment for the Arts; The Independence Community Foundation through The Staten Island Project and College of Staten Island Foundation; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with support of The September 11th Fund; and Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, supported by NYSCA and Jerome Foundation; with sponsorship from free103point9.

For more information click on the headline title of this blog post.

Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor

Note from CVB: I visited this musuem today. It is housed in a beautiful brick building at Snug Harbor. I was there for a book signing event (see the previous post). It was crowded so I plan to go back and spend more time there during visiting hours. John Noble's houseboat studio really intrigued me. The boat is on display in the museum and you can peek through its windows to see his desk, brushes, stove, and even a small bathroom.

From the museum website:

Mission Statement

The mission of the Noble Maritime Collection is to preserve and interpret the art, writings, and historical maritime artifacts of the distinguished marine artist, John A. Noble; to continue Noble's legacy of celebrating the people and traditions of the working waterfront of New York Harbor; to preserve and interpret the history of Sailors' Snug Harbor in its collections, exhibitions and programs; and to operate a maritime study center inspired by John A. Noble and the mariners of Sailors' Snug Harbor.

What you'll find at the Noble Maritime Collection:

Art exhibitions
Noble's houseboat studio, made from "the small bones of larger vessels"
Ship models
Rare and significant maritime collections
Education programs for students of all ages
Teacher training
Oral history about Sailors' Snug Harbor
Printmaking studios

About John A. Noble

Born in Paris in 1913, John A. Noble was the son of the noted American painter, John ("Wichita Bill") Noble. He spent his early years in the studios of his father and his father's contemporaries, innovative artists and writers of the early part of this century. He moved with his family to this country in 1919, a year which had great significance to him and foreshadowed his life's work. "It was the greatest wooden ship launching year in the history of the world," he often said.

"About 1929 I started my crude drawings and paintings," the artist recalled. "In the wintertime, while still going to school, I was a permanent fixture on the old McCarren line tugs, which had the monopoly on the schooner towing in New York Harbor. This kept them constantly before my eyes. In the summertime, I would go to sea." A graduate of the Friends Seminary in New York City, Noble returned to France in 1931, where he studied for one year at the University of Grenoble. There he met his wife and lifetime companion, "the lovely, green-eyed" Susan Ames. When he returned to New York, he studied for one year at the National Academy of Design. From 1928 until 1945, Noble worked as a seaman on schooners and in marine salvage. In 1928, while on a schooner that was towing out down the Kill van Kull, the waterway that separates Staten Island from New Jersey, he saw the old Port Johnston coal docks for the first time. It was a sight, he later asserted, which affected him for life. Port Johnston was "the largest graveyard of wooden sailing vessels in the world." Filled with new but obsolete ships, the great coalport had become a great boneyard. In 1941, Noble began to build his floating studio there, out of parts of vessels he salvaged. From 1946 on, he worked as a full-time artist. Often accompanied by his wife, he set off from his studio in a rowboat to explore the Harbor. These explorations resulted in a unique and exacting record of Harbor history in which its rarely documented characters, industries, and vessels are faithfully recorded. Although he was raised in artistic circles and quickly gained recognition for his work, Noble always remained intimate with the people of the Harbor. "I'm with factory people, industrial people, the immigrants, the sons of immigrants," he asserted. "It gives life to it." Late in his life, Noble recalled his first compelling views of New York Harbor. "I was crossing the 134th Street Bridge on the Harlem River on a spring day in 1928, and I was so shocked--it changed my life. I was frozen on that bridge, because both east and west of the bridge were sailing vessels. And I thought sailing vessels, you know, were gone... There it was, and I couldn't eat, or anything; I was so excited." By the time of his death in the spring of 1983, shortly after the passing of his beloved Susan, the sailing vessels he loved were all gone, and the maritime industry in the Harbor had diminished significantly.
But Noble's inexorable interest in the sea had not diminished. Although he felt the loss of many kinds of vessels, he was "just as interested in drawing the building of a great modern tanker, the working of a modern dredge, as...in the shifting of topsails." In fact, he wrote, "anywhere men work or build on the water is of interest to me...My life's work is to make a rounded picture of American maritime endeavor of modern times."

GALLERY HOURS
Thursday–Sunday, 1–5 PM

ADMISSION
$5.00 Adults
$3.00 Seniors/Students/Educators
Free to members and children under 10

Click on the post title to go to the museum website for more information and directions.

A Children's Book About Museum Manners Is released By The Noble Maritime Collection

The Noble Maritime Collection will celebrate the publication of a new children’s book, The Terrible Captain Jack Visits the Museum, on Grandparent’s Day, Sunday, September 9, 2007 from 2 until 5 PM at the museum.

In The Terrible Captain Jack Visits the Museum or A Guide to Museum Manners for Incorrigible Pirate and the Like, a worldly ship’s monkey explains how to behave in a museum to Captain Jack, “a mean and dangerous pirate” with a lot of curiosity.

Author and illustrator Diane Matyas, former Director of Programming at the Noble Maritime Collection, will read from her book and sign copies.

The Viva Voce Chamber Ensemble will fill the halls of the museum with pirate music. Guest will enjoy refreshments of a nautical nature.

Members of the museum’s CloseKnit club have knitted little ship’s monkeys which will be on sale to commemorate the publication of the book.

The book is on sale at the museum for $10.00. One can also order it by calling the museum.

Admission to the museum will be free on Grandparent’s Day.

Click on the headline above for more information about the museum and the musuem store which sells the book.