THICK TIME RADIO STATION
A workshop, performance lecture and event series focussed on creative co-mentorship
Pirate Radio: one must travel to where the signal becomes available in order to tune in. The locality of the broadcast changes as the source moves to elude those who would silence it. Its transience teaches us something about holding on and letting go.
TTRS is designed to explore approaches to co-mentoring relationships between artists, blurring the boundaries between mentorship and making, between making and finding, and between finding and illuminating. Ideas of creative development, sustainability, memory, and resources will be addressed, for all ages and stages of creative experience.
At its core, TTRS is focused on the workshop, where strategies around the collaborative composition of new performance material are used to respond to questions about development, as well as a way to reflect on and assess one’s own and others’ creative practice or desired trajectory. Making is a way to respond. Co-mentoring is reciprocal.
TTRS is led by Karen Christopher, and is adaptable to different scales and contexts, including some or all of the following activities:
* 3-5 day workshop (it is possible to organise these as half or full days or a combination).
* Public performance lecture or research event (e.g. walk, sunrise, or special site visit).
* Public facing presentation of performance material from the workshop.
* One-to-one co-mentoring sessions.
In addition:
* There is the option for a locally-based artist to collaborate with Karen to jointly plan and lead on the TTRS activities.
* The public presentation of the performance lecture, research event and/or concluding workshop presentation can include the integration of newly devised material by and with workshop participants.
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The first TTRS transmissions took place in Chicago, USA, in June 2019 at High Concept Labs, Hyde Park Art Center, and Experimental Station, and included a collaboration between Karen and the artists Etheridge & Persighetti. The activities were:
* Broadcast #1:
Performance lecture: Antenna a public event introducing the project.
Tuesday June 18, 6pm, at Hyde Park Art Center.
* Broadcast #2:
It Dawned on Me: an experience of light a sunrise event on the solstice.
Friday June 21, 4am-6am, Experimental Station.
* Broadcast #3:
Torrent of Memory: masts and coordinates
Workshops for local artist participants. Volunteer participants took part in these workshops and were part of the project’s final presentation.
Tuesday to Thursday June 25-27, 10am-1pm, at HCL.
* Broadcast #4:
Witness effect: who’s listening one-to-one advisory sessions for local artist participants.
* Broadcast #5:
Thick Time radio transmission a radio broadcast, a sonic communication from the inside of our station network.
* Broadcast #6:
Anti-Entropy: Thick Time progress report a concluding public event, including the integration of newly devised material by and with participants.
Saturday 29 June, 3pm at Hyde Park Art Center.
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The second TTRS transmission took place online in April 2021. In light of the COVID pandemic, and the necessity of maintaining peer connections & international friendships in an isolating time, the TTRS workshop was adapted to exist in a low-pressure, slow, online format.
This iteration of TTRS was coordinated by Take Me Somewhere (Glasgow), and included the participation of six artists based in Scotland (selected from an Open Call) and six international artists (nominated by TMS’s international partners), facilitated by Karen Christopher. The workshop was focused around four 2-hour sessions spread over two weeks, with activities including introductory conversations, solo making, reporting back and creative provocations.
Event History
17-29 June 2019, at High Concept Labs, Hyde Park Art Center, and Experimental Station, Chicago, USA (in collaboration with Etheridge & Persighetti). See left for detail.
20-29 April 2021, online, as part of Take Me Somewhere (Glasgow). See left for detail.