Audio Interference

"Bail is often described as incarceration's front door, because if you can't afford it, you're going to jail." - Peter Goldberg In this week's episode of Audio Interference, we will speak with some of the people spearheading criminal justice reform work here in New York City. First, we will look at how bail is used as a tool to criminalize poverty. Then, we will speak with two of the organizers behind the campaign to close Rikers Island Jail. Interviewees include (in order): Rachel Foran, Managing Director of the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund Peter Goldberg, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund Melody Lee, Director of Strategy and Campaigns at the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice Myaisha Hayes, Lead Organizer for the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice Learn more at: https://brooklynbailfund.org/ http://www.closerikers.org/ Music used in this episode: "Piazza y nieve" by L.D.I. Untitled Track by Kil Kare Produced by Interference Archive.

"I think that people are going to see reflected in this so much from their own life and from the contemporary world, more than we want there to be." - Brad Duncan.   On today's show, Rob Smith speaks to Brad Duncan, one of the curators of Finally Got The News: The Printed Legacy of the U.S. Radical Left, 1970-1979, which runs from January 26 - May 14, 2017 at Interference Archive. While the exhibition is focused on the '70s, it's concerns are still relevant today.   You can learn more about left history of the 1970s and beyond on Brad's blog: http://radicalarchive.tumblr.com   Music includes: "Liam Rides a Pony" and "The Itis," both by Polyrhythmics from the album Octagon, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. Based on a work at http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/polyrhythmics/   Produced by Interference Archive.

"There is a kind of magic to sitting down and knowing that if someone wanted to, they could hear my voice right now." - Mike Clemow   Radio Free Gowanus is a pop-up radio station broadcasting during the Gowanus Open Studios, every October.  In this episode, Louise Barry speaks to the station's founder, sound artist Mike Clemow.  This episode features excerpts from the RFG podcast, including a beatboxing performance by Adam Matta and a handbell performance by Brooklyn Bells.  You can find out more about Radio Free Gowanus, or listen to the full podcasts, at www.radiofreegowanus.org.   Produced by Interference Archive.

To mark the occasion of the launch of Season 2 of Audio Interference, we  hosted a panel discussion on the use of podcasts as propaganda and community building tools.  The event was held at Interference Archive on October 4, 2016.  Panelists included:   -Julie Golia, Director of Public History at Brooklyn Historical Society and co-host and producer of Flatbush + Main -Zaheer Ali, Oral Historian at Brooklyn Historical Society and co-host and producer of Flatbush + Main -Aaron Lakoff, curator and host of Rebel Beat -Kaitlin Prest, creative director and host of The Heart, a podcast and art project exploring love, bodies, gender and sexuality distributed by Radiotopia by PRX -Tennessee Jane Watson, a reporter, artist and educator, who produces audio documentaries, oral histories, sound installations and youth media projects -Mark Winston Griffith, Executive Director at Brooklyn Movement Center and co-host and co-producer of The Third Rail.   The panel was moderated by Louise Barry, one of the creators of Audio

"People are afraid and disappointed and in some cases heartbroken, and it's not enough anymore to sit at home and donate a small amount of money or buy a t-shirt.  Coming out and being around your community and participating with them is necessary."  - Janina Larenas   In this episode, we look at two projects mobilizing people for resistance during Trump's presidency.  First, Louise Barry and Vero Ordaz talk to information workers gathered for a strategy session at Interference Archive.  Next, Lani Hanna talks to artist Janina Larenas about her project, Print Organize Protest. Learn more at www.printorganizeprotest.org.   Produced by Interference Archive.   Music:  "Forget About Tomorrow" by Eyelids, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

"The main idea is to empower people who are observers, and provide them with tools to become participants in the political realm." - Cleo Barnett, The Amplifier Foundation In this week's episode, we take a close look at activist art produced by the Amplifier Foundation. We speak with Cleo Barnett from the Foundation about their history, current projects, as well as some of her favorite activist stickers they've recently made. Be sure to stick around for the end of this episode, where Cleo will share with us her recipe for wheat paste, used to adhere political posters to a wall or surface.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"I was born and raised here, and the fact that I went to college, I'm a working professional, and I can't come back to my own community and buy a house, is a very big problem." In this week's episode, we look at the struggle for housing here in Brooklyn. We speak with Jean Stevens, Esq., a housing attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, about affordable housing and tenant associations. Later on in the episode, we hear from neighborhood residents about what brought them to the Brooklyn Community Forum on Anti-Gentrification and Displacement held at the Brooklyn Museum.   Music: "Mercurial Vision" and "Cat's Eye" by Blue Dot Sessions, "Marimba Motivation" by Dave Depper.   Produced by Interference Archive.

“The songs really are some of the most direct expression of the collective voice of the movement.”  - Silvia Federici   For this week's episode, Charlie Morgan and Louise Barry interviewed Silvia Federici about Italian music in the 1960s and the Wages for Housework campaign.   Music:   "Prendiamoci La Città" by Pino Masi.   "Per i morti di Reggio Emilia" by Fausto Amodei   "O cancellier che tieni la penna in mano"   "La ballata della Pinelli" by Pino Masi   "Avete mai guardato" by Amalia Goffredo   All these songs are from records held at Interference Archive.  Likewise, copies of The Power of Women are also held at the archive, along with Tap Dance - the newspaper put out by the New York Wages for Housework campaign - and Lotta Continua.   For images of the newspapers and records, and links to more information, visit our blog: www.interferencearchive.org/blog   Produced by Interference Archive.

"It was extremely traumatic...mothers didn't send their kids to school, people didn't go to work, because of these raids." - Tania Mattos UnLocal is a New York-based legal services organization, which works with immigrant communities to provide legal representation, education, and advocacy.  UnLocal's collaboration with Mobile Print Power was included in the recent Interference Archive exhibition, Soñamos Sentirnos Libres: Under Construction.  In this episode, Brooke Shuman talks to Michele Lampach, Executive Director of UnLocal, and Tania Mattos, the Outreach Coordinator.   You can learn more about UnLocal by visiting their website: www.unlocal.org.  For more information about UnLocal's collaboration with Mobile Print Power and Interference, check out Audio Interference 13: Mobile Print Power. Music: "Diagonally Talking Echoes" by Dustin Wong, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"There are fewer squatters because of state repression--because of the way the law has changed and the way the police enforce that law." - Greg Ryan   This episode is about the effects of UK housing law on the London squatters movement.  Louise Barry talks to Myk Zeitlin of the Advisory Service for Squatters, former squatter Greg Ryan, and a member of the Squatters Action for Secure Homes (SQUASH) campaign.     Music: "Instrumental #2" by Gillicuddy, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"It's people who are more familiar with archives who have more trouble figuring out how to negotiate this space...There's one researcher I remember, she came in with this question about Adrienne Rich, so I mistakenly assumed that she wanted to see Adrienne Rich's papers.  And so I took down the box and she was just so intimidated to be in front of this collection of personal papers that had been personally donated by Adrienne Rich." - Rachel Corbman   In this episode, Lani Hanna and Brooke Shuman talk to Maxine Wolfe and Rachel Corbman, of the Lesbian Herstory Archives.  Based in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the Lesbian Herstory Archives is home to the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians and their communities.   Music and spoken word from the 1977 album, Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and Poems.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"The image allows for the viewer to interpret it quickly.  And I guess that's what an advertiser tries to do--that's what a propagandist tries to do."  - Kevin Caplicki   In this episode, Brooke Shuman talks to Kevin Caplicki, one of the founders of Interference Archive and a member of Justseeds.  Founded in 1998, Justseeds is a worker-owned cooperative that produces politically-themed prints.  With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods.  Justseeds produces collective portfolios on subjects including climate justice, the Zapatista movement, migration, reproductive rights, and the US prison system.   Music included: "Kufanya Mapenzi (Making Love)" Ramsey Lewis 7" Single (Columbia Records, 1972)   "Anti-manifesto" Propagandhi How to Clean Everything (Fat Wreck Chords, 1993)   Produced by Interference Archive.  For more in

"We were subject to an FBI sting.  We were placed under surveillance, and we were able to discover the surveillance and get rid of it, but then for the next nine years we were living underground." - Diana Block   In this episode, Lani Hanna speaks to Diana Block about her life as an activist, organizer, and writer.  Block was a founding member of San Francisco Women Against Rape and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee.  When her activism in support of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement attracted the attention of the FBI, she spent thirteen years living "underground" under a different identity.   You will also hear Diana Block read from her novel, Clandestine Occupations, during the exhibition Armed By Design/El Diseño a las Armas: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL).   Produced by Interference Archive.   Music: "Fibonaci Effect in Two Movements" by Lanark, "El Danzon de Noventa Millas" by Cuban Cowboys, and "Pi

"We were still coming off the afterglow, in many ways, of May '68.  There's no question about that." - Greg Sholette.   In this episode, artist, writer, and activist Greg Sholette relates the history of the political art collective PAD/D, and how the collective used art to resist gentrification in 1980s New York.  Sholette was interviewed by Louise Barry and Eric Triantafillou in March.     Produced by Interference Archive.   Music: "Bruises," "No One's Trophy," and "Asleep," by Christian Flanders, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

"I think about posters as a way of starting a conversation, but I don't feel like we talk enough about how that conversation is started and where that conversation goes beyond talking."  -- Kameelah Janan Rasheed   On Nov 4, 2015, Interference Archive hosted a panel entitled Solidarity, Distribution, Design: The Poster Today,  which explored the intersection of graphic design and socio-political engagement.   Josh MacPhee of Interference Archive moderated the event and was joined by artists Dread Scott, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Avram Finkelstein for a rousing discussion that touched on topics of appropriation, respectability politics and even the Fast and Furious movie franchise.   Produced by Interference Archive.   Music: "Welcome Departure" by Ketsa, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

"We're blessed with being the keepers of some very valuable stuff.  It's not ours.  It's intentional that this is part of the community and belongs to the community." - Claude Marks   Freedom Archives is based in San Francisco and contains over 10,000 hours of audio and video tape, which chronicles both revolutionary struggles and state repressions.  They also create audio and video documentaries of their own.  Interference Archive reached out to Freedom Archives because of their shared commitment to archiving the histories of social movements.  Lani Hanna spoke to Freedom Archives co-founder Claude Marks, and his co-worker Nathaniel Moore.   Music: "Kentucky Mule" by Tate Peterson, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"Before we ask questions, we find out more about the problems that are happening.  And sometimes we even go out and ask the people around us: what is something that you don't feel comfortable with?  Where do you feel disconnected?...I think that's the way that we actually find political issues to do art with."  - Stephanie Roman   Mobile Print Power is a multigenerational collective based out of Immigrant Movement International in Corona, Queens, who use silkscreen printmaking to engage communities and explore social and cultural situations.  Mobile Print Power's history of collaborative work is the subject of Interference Archive's upcoming exhibition, Soñamos Sentirnos Libres / Under Construction, opening May 1.  In this episode of Audio Interference, Charlie Morgan and Lani Hanna talk to collective members Marissa Campiz, Brandon Castillo, Jennifer Muñoz, Stephanie Roman, and Patrick Rowe.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"I just remember when I was first making comics, it just felt really powerful.  It's kind of like that feeling when you first start riding a bike." - Jan Descartes   In this episode, Louise Barry speaks with two contributors to Interference Archive's exhibition, Our Comics, Ourselves: Jan Descartes, an artists and one of the curators of the exhibition, and zinemaker Elvis B., creator of the series Homos in Herstory and co-founder of the NYC Feminist Zine Fest.   Music: "Minus Mercury" by Thorn1, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.   Produced by Interference Archive.  

"I really wanted people to understand what the past was.  At its base level, this is what happens when women have to use a coat hanger when they need an abortion." -Leela Corman   Leela Corman is an illustrator and comic book artist, based in Gainesville, Florida.  Her 2012 graphic novel Unterzakhn is about twin sisters growing up in the Russian-Jewish neighborhood of the Lower East Side at the turn of the last century.  Lani Hanna sat down with Corman in February to discuss the book.   Produced by Interference Archive.

"We saw the hierarchical constraints of the society our parents created, and we wanted to do it differently.  So we created this flattened, non-hierarchical approach to almost everything we did."   In the 1960s and 1970s, California-based print collective Peoples Press produced numerous books and pamphlets on international political struggles.  In this episode of Audio Interference, Lani Hanna talks with collective members Jane Norling and Marty Williams about the influence of Cuba, organizing volunteer labor, and becoming a self-taught printer.   Music: "Conscience" by Ketsa and "De Cuba" by Songo 21, both courtesy of the Free Music Archive.   Produced by Interference Archive.