radioELO seeks to promote sound as a genre of electronic/generated/computational (EGC) literature. In this regard, radioELO has collected sound artifacts from Electronic Literature Organization conferences for archiving, curating, and on demand listening at a dedicated website.
For the 2016 conference, radioELO manifests as a work of transmission art featuring low power AM band radio broadcasts to vintage radios, most from the 1930s, positioned throughout the exhibition space. Live and recorded content is produced and broadcast onsite.
Transmission arts engage aural and video broadcast media. Often, transmission arts are live, participatory, time-based, dynamic and fluid, always open to redefinition, intent to put communication tools in the hands of artists / the public for the realization of democratic cultural communication networks. As a result, the media are used in ways different from their original (commercial) intention. This interplay prompts redefinition(s) between artist and audience, transmitter and receiver, along with the telecommunications airwaves as the site for its practice.
The point being made is we are awash in sounds that, through creative combination and careful listening, can promote compelling narratives indicative of a new genre of EGC literature.
While radio and electronic literature may seem unlikely partners, they share commonalities. Both tell stories, present events, and contextualize the world in narrative form. Both are temporal but capable of returning through curated programs shared with widespread audiences. The combination of technologies comprising radioELO is, therefore, purposeful, meant to demonstrate the creative affordances of sound-based literary artifacts grounded in the act of listening.
By drawing attention to aural information in a listening context, radioELO, as a work of transmission art, broadens the understanding and appreciation of sound as integral to EGC literature, both as a changing cultural artifact and creative expression.