In this episode, we speak to Zeelie Brown, a Black, queer artist and cellist based in New York City. She creates “soulscapes”: sites and soundscapes that invoke the temporality, sacredness of connection, and layers of history embedded within feelings of refuge. Zeelie’s sanctuary spaces draw on her personal and ancestral traditions of music, cuisine, scent, ritual, and community. Throughout this episode, you’ll hear music that Zeelie has produced as a part of her practice.

This episode stems out of a partnership with Brooklyn Public Library, where we explore how different organizations, groups, and people aim to create space for folks who are often disenfranchised and disempowered by normative systems at work in our world. Stick around at the end of the episode to hear from Tim Barrigan, a literacy advisor in the adult learning center at the Brooklyn Public Library. 

You can listen to the Brooklyn Public Library's episode here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/education-for-all

Audio Interference 80: Soulscapes

Free City Radio contribution for Audio Interference: Asylum seekers fighting back against workplace exploitation in Montréal 

In this segment we hear about the struggles for workplace justice for non-status people and asylum seekers in Montréal. The segment revolves around an ongoing campaign on the part of the Immigrant Workers Centre to support the workers at the warehouse distribution centre for Dollarama, one of the largest dollar shop corporations in North America. Many of the workers at the 24-hour distribution centre for North America, which was declared an essential service by the government in Québec City last spring, are asylum seekers and non-status people. 

Mostafa Henaway, an organizer with the Immigrant Workers Centre speaks about the campaign to support Dollarama warehouse workers, giving some context and background. Mohamed Barry, a former asylum seeker from Guinea who recently won status, speaks on experiences working within the Dollarama warehouse distribution centre and details the ways that asylum seekers from West Africa and the Caribbean are being exploited in such workplaces in Québec.

Mohamed is one of the founders of the Statut pour les guinéens campaign to demand regularization for all refugees from Guinea and is a former worker at the Dollarama warehouse. View a silk-screen poster worked on by artist Christeen Francis, a member of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, that is up here to support the campaign. 

Thank you for listening ! –– Stefan Christoff.

Radio Pink

Audio Interference 81: Asylum Seekers Fighting Back Against Workplace Exploitation In Montréal

In this episode, we speak with Interference Archive volunteer Dane Michael about his favorite zines in the archive’s collection as well as his interest in collecting radical print materials and mutual aid ephemera, which he regularly donates to the archive. In particular, Dane shares experiences traveling to social centers and radical spaces in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia in Spain. He also talks about the mutual aid work he is a part of in the Bay Area in California. 

References from this episode of Audio Interference: 
Doris Zine: www.dorisdorisdoris.com
Todo Por Hacer: www.todoporhacer.org	

Dane is part of a few mutual aid groups in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco, including: East Bay Food Not Bombs: www.eastbayfoodnotbombs.org	
Omni Commons: www.omnicommons.org	
Bound Together Bookstore: www.boundtogetherbooks.wordpress.com	
Prisoners Literature Project: www.prisonlit.org	
North Oakland Mutual Aid: www.instagram.com/northoakland_mutualaid/?hl=en	

Thank you to J.Cruz/COVR for creating the music for this episode, which is titled “shake shake shake”.  

Audio Interference is produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 82: Dane Michael on Zines & Mutual Aid

In this episode, volunteer Jen Hoyer explains how the archive is using donated materials to create an online presence for noteworthy, but digitally absent groups like Sister Serpents. But generating new materials and new discussions is not without a few risks. Stay tuned to find out more. 

To learn more about Sister Serpents, check out episode 52!

Audio Interference is produced by Interference Archive.

Music: 
"The Crisper" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
"Soundboy" by 4bstr4ck3r
"Scenery" by Kai Engel
"Elk" by Meydän

Audio Interference 83: Sister Serpents & Generative Archiving

What does May Day mean to you? In this episode of Audio Interference we dive into the history of May Day and explore what it means to a few of our community members. [First published May 1, 2023]. 

Our thanks to Nora Almeida and Mikey Goldenberg for their contributions.  

Additional Credits:

"Exquisite Motion" by Blue Dot Sessions (https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/177708)

"Her Caliber" by Blue Dot Sessions (https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/177734)

"Crowds, Children & Footsteps - Industrial Dispute, chanting among marchers" - BBC (https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/search?q=07043084)

---

Episode bibliography:

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-01/ 

https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/may-day-americas-traditional-radical-complicated-holiday-part-2

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/01/may-day-history-international-workers-day

https://www.richmondprogressivealliance.net/the_activist_celebrates_may_day

To hear the episode Mikey Goldenberg references, visit: 
https://interferencearchive.org/podcast/audio-interference-75-kent-state-and-jackson-state/

Episode 84: What Does May Day Mean to You?

“So much of the dominant mainstream society at that point was so odious that it felt like a desperate need to find a place that was different and alternative.” —Josh MacPhee 

Greg Mihalko interviews Josh MacPhee, co-founder of Interference Archive, about his collection of hardcore punk flyers and ephemera.  

Music includes: "Guilty" by Spewing Cum and "While You're Waiting for the Revolution" by Action Will Be Taken, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 01: Josh MacPhee

“It’s not about the things, it’s about the people: who made it, who saw it, who was influenced by it.” -Lincoln Cushing

Lincoln Cushing is an artist, author, and archivist from the Bay Area, who worked with Interference Archive on our recent exhibition on the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL), Armed by Design.  Lani Hanna interviewed Lincoln about movement archives,  large institutions vs. community-based organizations, and the importance of accurately documenting the past.

A selection of OSPAAAL posters can be seen in Lincoln’s book, "Revolución!: Cuban Poster Art."  You can also visit his website, docspopuli.org, for more information.

Music: "Mid-Day Blues" by Tate Peterson, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Produced by Interference Archive.


Audio Interference 05: Lincoln Cushing

"The importance of art in the movement was that not everyone could see themselves at the front lines...art allowed for a more inclusive community." - Tina Orlandini

Tina Orlandini is a writer, human rights advocate, and creative organizer whose work identifies crossroads in community, arts and social change. In 2012, Tina, along with fellow collaborators Stephan Andreas, Pedro Lugo, Lourdes Santiago, Isabel Ferro and Marimer Berberena, co-curated smArtAction: ¡A estudiar y a luchar!, a collaborative art exhibition in recognition of two of the most resourceful and inspiring student strikes of the last decade. Through an arts-led approach, University of Puerto Rico students were able to outwit the administration while rallying popular support around the struggle for an accessible, democratic and quality university. Both strikes provide an instructive repertoire of action for present and future student resistance movements worldwide. 

To see a gallery of images from the exhibition, and to learn more about the UPR student movement, visit www.smartactionexhibition.com.

Image: Isamar Abreu, "La UPR No Se Vende."

Music:
What True Self? Feels Bogus, Let's Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie
You Must Believe in Summer by Learning Music
(freemusicarchive.org/music/Learning_Music)

Audio Interference 07: Tina Orlandini

"Jean would take her income tax refund check and go to the track and bet on horses, and whatever money she made funded Tabloid."

Tabloid was a collectively edited critical journal of mass culture and everyday life which emerged out of (and in opposition to)  Stanford University in the late 1970s and 1980s.  Interference Archive's Lani Hanna and Vero Ordaz spoke with Jean Franco, Mary Louise Pratt, Maria Damon, Dana Polan, and Ed Cohen about the history of the journal.

Music: "Nights Tale," "Summer’s Coming" and, "After The Week I’ve Had" by Dexter Britain; "Strange Wedding 60908" by Marcel.  All music courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Produced by Interference Archive. 

Audio Interference 08: Tabloid

"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.  

Audio Interference 12: Elvis B. & Jan Descartes

"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. 

Audio Interference 19: Lesbian Herstory Archives

"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.

Audio Interference 24: Amplifier Foundation

"People have knowledge, and they can put together stations that'll blow the doors off a government station...you get set up in the Amazon in Brazil, and you set up twenty dollars worth of equipment, you can blow a thousand miles out because there's nothing to interfere with that signal." - Rob Robinson

Charlie Morgan talks to Rob Robinson, housing activist and former co-host of "Global Movements, Urban Struggles" on WBAI.  

Music: "Quasi Motion," by Kevin MacLeod, courtesy of the Free Music Archive. 

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 30: Rob Robinson

"There were people in the buildings who modeled themselves after homesteaders and very much wanted to become homeowners, wanted the approval of the city, wanted to act respectable--and there were other people who were doing this as a critique of private property.  There were people who were fixing up their space as if it was going to be their family home for generations, and there were people who just needed a temporary place to stay and were making the best of it." - Amy Starecheski

Louise Barry interviews Amy Starecheski, author of Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City, about the process of transforming Lower East Side squats into limited-equity low-income co-ops, and the conflicts and challenges generated by this process.  Amy's book is an oral history of squatting on the Lower East Side, and this episode includes excerpts from her interviews.  The squatters whose voices are included in this podcast are: Famous Chrome, Maria DeDominicis, Rolando Politi, Fly, Chris Flambeaux, Nigel Clayton, David Boyle, Arrow, Geoff Dann, and Maggie Wrigley. 

Music: "Dance 2000!", by Kil Kare.  Produced by Interference Archive.

More information about Amy's book, Ours to Lose, can be found here: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo24550813.html

To learn more about squatting on the Lower East Side, check out the list of resources on our blog: http://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-31-squatting-on-the-lower-east-side/

Audio Interference 31: Squatting on the Lower East Side

Interference Archive’s summer 2017 exhibition Take Back the Fight: Resisting Sexual Violence from the Ground Up--a collaboration with Lesbian Herstory Archives--focuses on organized responses to gender and sexual violence, highlighting the ways individuals and communities have developed creative and powerful grassroots and non-institutional justice and healing practices.  In this episode of Audio Interference, we talk to the organizers of the exhibition: Lani Hanna, Melissa Forbis, Rachel Corbman, Monica Johnson, and Louise Barry. 

Take Back the Fight is on view now at Interference Archive, and will be up through October 29.  The music and spoken word pieces featured in this episode are from the album Free to Fight, which is part of the archive’s collection and is also included in the exhibition.  Free to Fight was produced by Candy Ass Records in 1995.   Songs include: 151, "Real Defense;" Mizzery, "Sleepin' Wit' The Enemy;" Excuse Seventeen, "Forever Fired;" Fifth Column, "Don't." 

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 35: Take Back the Fight

"Even if it seems like it doesn't directly relate to food, it does.  Food relates to housing, to life, to water, to land." - Qiana Mickie

This episode includes an interview with Qiana Mickie, Executive Director of Just Food (www.justfood.org), about the challenges of working toward fairer food access in New York and the relationships between food justice and other social movements.  We also talk to Jen Hoyer and Maggie Schreiner, curators of Fair Food Nation, Interference Archive's recent exhibition at the Ace Hotel.  

Music: "One," by Red Coat Charmers, and "Feet You're Standing On," by Rough Housers.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 37: Just Food & Fair Food Nation

"To be healthy, or even to be seen as someone who deserves care, you have to look a very specific way, and those are ways that are often privileged in our society, so white, able-bodied, thin, rich...we believe that every person gets to have bodily autonomy and define for themselves: what does healing look like for me right now? what does health mean for me?"

In this episode of Audio Interference, we are speaking with folks from Harriet’s Apothecary, an intergenerational, gender nonconforming collective of healers, artists, health professionals, magicians and activists who are expanding the way we understand health. Speakers Adaku Utah, Naimah Efia Johnson and Beatrice Anderson talk about the legacy of healing, the connection between health and abolitionism, and the community healing spaces they create for people who identify as black, indigenous and people of color.

To learn more about Harriet's Apothecary, visit their website at www.harrietsapothecary.com. There you can find their oracle deck project, "365 days of affirming black life and amplifying black love": www.harrietsapothecary.com/new-blog

The music in this episode include "We are the Ones" by Sweet Honey in the Rock and "Funkadelic" by CSC Funk Band.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 39: Harriets Apothecary

"Anybody can join.  There's so many different access points for you to join the movement to say no to white nationalism, and there's so many ways to say no."

no. NOT EVER will be at Interference Archive in early 2018. 

If You Don’t They Will’s no. NOT EVER. installation and accompanying workshops provide an anti-racist, anti-fascist framework for understanding the rise of white nationalism in the current moment.  This installation draws inspiration from research and organizing work against white nationalism by members and  from interviews with rural activists who worked to fight white nationalism in their communities in the 1980’s and 1990’s at the height of the “Northwest Territorial Imperative.”  If You Don’t They Will has now interviewed 20+ organizers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho that represent complex intersections of race, gender, class and culture involved in this resistance movement.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 41: Anti-Fascists in the Pacific Northwest

On February 9, 2018, Interference Archive presented a talk by Silvia Federici, co-founder of the Wages for Housework movement, on the publication of her new book, The New York Wages for Housework Committee, 1972-1977.  Throughout the 1970s, the Wages for Housework movement developed an analysis of women’s reproductive labor— “housework” broadly conceived— as a primary site for mobilization.  The movement, publication, and Federici's talk ask us: How do we understand and value our own reproductive labor? How can we organize around this work in a way that is transformative both of our own lives and builds a collective opposition to a global capitalist system?

For more information about Silvia's new book: https://www.akpress.org/wages-for-housework.html

For more information about Silvia Federici, check out Audio Interference Episode 22 (http://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-22-silvia-federici/), in which Silvia talks not only about Wages for Housework, but also about her collection of anarchist and communist 45s from the 1960s. 

You might also be interested in a few more events coming up at Interference Archive:
Chicago-based feminist art collective Sister Serpents: http://interferencearchive.org/sister-serpents/
Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon: http://interferencearchive.org/2018-artfeminism-wikipedia-edit-a-thon/

The song you hear at the end of this episode is “Avete mai guardato” by Amalia Goffredo.  

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference: Silvia Federici & Wages For Housework

"When I first took karate, I was already an activist.  And I could see right away what this could do for women in the 70s."  -- Annie Ellman

In this episode, we talk to two groups that teach self-defense skills: Pop Gym (popgym.org)and the Center for Anti-Violence Education (caeny.org).  We hear from CAE founder Annie Ellman, along with Izzy Finkelstein and Rachel Marks, and Pop Gym founder Grey Cohen. 

This episode includes audio from a self-defense demo by the CAE Peer Educators at our block party in September 2017, originally broadcast live on Radio Free Gowanus (www.radiofreegowanus.org). 

Music: "Dawn II" by Swelling, "Hit or Miss" by Odetta.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 45: Teaching Self Defense

This episode features a performance by Koyt Far Dayn Fardakht (http://koytfilth.band) at Interference Archive's 2017 block party, as well as an interview with the band, , who describe their music as "queer/trans antizionist Yiddish punk," broadcast live on Radio Free Gowanus (www.radiofreegowanus.org).

All music by Koyt Far Dayn Fardakht.  Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 48: Koyt Far Dayn Fardakht

"All the messages from pop culture present Asian American as an apolitical thing.  It was really shocking and liberating to find out that actually, Asian American politics was rooted in radical organizing and rooted in grassroots arts movements."  -- Ryan Wong

This episode of Audio Interference focuses on Basement Workshop (active 1970-1986), an arts and political organization based in New York City's Chinatown that served as a hub for the developing Asian American movement.  Elena Levi speaks to curator and writer Ryan Wong, whose exhibition, Serve the People: The Asian American Movement in New York was presented at Interference Archive in 2013-2014.  The episode also includes portions of Ryan's talk at an event celebrating the release of the latest issue of Signal (http://s1gnal.org/), a journal of international political graphics and culture.

Ryan's article on Hyperallergic includes more information on Basement Workshop and other Chinatown arts organizations:
https://hyperallergic.com/330442/a-brief-history-of-the-art-collectives-of-nycs-chinatown/

More on Serve the People:
http://interferencearchive.org/serve-the-people-the-asian-american-movement-in-new-york/

Issue #6 of Signal:
https://justseeds.org/product/signal06/

This episode features the song "Yellow Pearl" by Chris Kando Iijima, Joanne Nobuko Miyamoto, "Charlie" Chin from the recording entitled A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America, PAR01020, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.  (p) (c) 1973.  Used by permission.

Link:  https://folkways.si.edu/chris-kando-iijima-joanne-nobuko-miyamoto-charlie-chin/a-grain-of-sand-music-for-the-struggle-by-asians-in-america/american-folk-protest/music/album/smithsonian

Other music used includes "Artifical Intelligence" and "One and Only" by Ryan Andersen, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 49: Ryan Wong and Basement Workshop

"Adjunctification is really this process of replacing full time academic positions with part time academic positions at lower wages and usually inferior, if any, benefits as a cost saving measure."

In this episode, we speak with Carly Smith and Susan DiRaimo, two adjunct professors at the City University of New York, the public university system of New York City and the largest urban university system in the country. They tell us about the daily reality for adjuncts and how their union, the Professional Staff Congress, helps them fight for better wages and working conditions. Their current battle is for a minimum salary of $7K per course that they teach, a radical demand that could finally bring many adjuncts out of poverty and change the national conversation about funding for public education.

Music: "Better World," by Woody Guthrie.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 51: Adjunctification at CUNY

"We were exploding and we were asking women all over to explode with us."

SisterSerpents was a radical feminist art collective founded in Chicago in 1989. In this episode, we speak with Jeramy Turner, one of the group's founders. She explains the history of SisterSerpents and how they used art as their weapon in the fight against women's oppression. 

Interference Archive houses some of SisterSerpents material. Additional material may be found in Loyola University of Chicago's Women and Leadership Archives. 

Music: "Buzz Chant" by U.S. Girls and "That Breed" by Weyes Blood, courtesy of Free Music Archive. 

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 52: SisterSerpents

“We knew it was illegal, and we knew the FCC would probably come after us at some point, and they did.”

This episode focuses on two New York pirate radio stations--Steal This Radio and WBAD--both of which were active in the 1990s.  We interview Arrow Chrome, one of the founders of Steal This Radio, a pirate station that grew out of a Lower East Side community of squatters and activists.  The episode also includes some audio from an event at Interference Archive featuring David Goren, creator of the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map, and DJ Cintronics, the founder of the unlicensed hip hop station WBAD, which became known for playing music you couldn’t hear on mainstream hip hop radio.   

Two New York Times articles on Steal This Radio from the 1990s:

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/19/nyregion/neighborhood-report-villages-east-and-west-fm-mouse-roars-at-fcc.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/27/arts/pirate-radio-in-touch-with-the-village-not-the-fcc.html

DJ Arrow Chrome: https://www.facebook.com/DJ-Arrow-Chrome-276743467947/

About Charas El Bohio: https://www.placematters.net/node/1432

http://thevillager.com/2018/04/29/the-story-of-chino-and-charas-activist-hopeful-for-old-p-s-64s-return/

Dj Cintronics: https://www.facebook.com/DJ-CINTRONICS-211556268893/
https://www.mixcloud.com/djcintronicspodcast/

David Goren’s audio documentary on WBAD, “Outlaws of the Airwaves:” https://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/lost-notes/outlaws-of-the-airwaves-the-rise-of-pirate-radio-station-wbad

Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map: https://www.pirateradiomap.com/ 

Music: “Version City Lady” by Rocker T and the Version City Rockers, a recording made at a benefit show for Steal This Radio in 1998.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 55: Steal This Radio and WBAD

“I remember walking home from that huge protest and feeling this sense of huge hope in the air...And it was just really exciting and it felt like things actually could change.”  --Becca Shaw Glazer

In this episode, we speak with activists who participated in protests against the World Trade Organization in the 1990s and 2000s. The 1999 Seattle protest against the WTO is often seen as the beginning of a worldwide anti-globalization movement and the Indymedia movement.  About 40,000 people took to the streets to express their dissent, and protestors successfully blocked delegates from entering the convention center, delaying the meeting. The protests became known as “The Battle of Seattle” because of the police violence that ensued in response.  We focus on the protests that took place in Seattle, and then share an interview with someone who participated in WTO protests in Cancun, one of the protests that took place globally as a result.  

A huge thank you to our interviewees for speaking with us for this episode: Becca Shaw Glaser, Danielle Chynoweth, Mark Enslin, and Celeste.  Many of these people were involved in founding the Independent Media Center in Urbana, IL and the radio station WRFU, and became connected to Interference Archive when they began airing episodes of this podcast.  

Archival materials used in this episode include:
Democracy Now, 12.2.1999 Broadcast, Drum Circle from WTO Protest in Seattle and interviews with activists
Democracy Now, 12.3.1999 Broadcast, Activists chanting and interviews with activists
Democracy Now, 12.6.1999 Broadcast, WTO Talks Collapse

Courtesy of Celeste, who was working with pirate radio and independent media at the time, we have been able to include recordings of the 2003 WTO protest in Cancun, including an interview with the Beehive Collective and with Celeste herself.  You can also listen to these recordings at Interference Archive. 

To learn more about the Battle of Seattle, and international WTO protests:

60 Minute reporting of Seattle protests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i_4xEBCdys
Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-1999	
“Curfew in effect as Seattle struggles to control WTO protests,” http://www.cnn.com/US/9911/30/wto.04/
“State of Emergency in Seattle,” https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/dec/01/wto
“Seattle WTO Uprising Still a Force in World Events, 15 Years Later,” http://berkeleyjournal.org/2014/12/seattle-wto-uprising-still-a-force-in-world-events-15-years-later/
“WTO Meeting and Protests in Seattle (1999),” http://www.historylink.org/File/9183 & http://www.historylink.org/File/9213 
“20 Years of the WTO: A Story of Poverty and Protest,” https://www.telesurenglish.net//english/analysis/20-Years-of-the-WTO-A-Story-of-Poverty-and-Protest-20150415-0017.html 

You can also visit the archive for print materials related to these protests. 

To learn more about Lee Kyung Hae and his leadership among the activist and farming communities: 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/16/northkorea.wto
https://viacampesina.org/en/take-agriculture-out-of-the-wto-farmer-lee-kyung-hae-reproducing-his-letter-from-2003/
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/world/farming-is-korean-s-life-and-he-ends-it-in-despair.html

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 56: WTO Protests, Seattle 1999

“I think we were interested in finding a true story. We were interested in telling the truth, not to make a propaganda film and not to make a film that would make people feel heroic. We wanted to make a film that was both sympathetic to the project and its goals and purposes, and at the same time was realistic about the world that it was operating in.” 
- Robert Machover

In this episode we speak with Norman Fruchter and Robert Machover about their collaboration as filmmakers and instructors at the Free University of New York (FUNY), a 1960s experiment in radical education. Fruchter presented a course called ‘Film Form: Propaganda into Art’, and Machover offered a workshop with the aim of producing a film collectively under the title ‘Filmmaking’. This led to creation of the film Dog Burning at Noon, a short clip of which plays during the episode. This episode also includes a discussion of and short clip from Machover and Fruchter’s 1966 film Troublemakers, which chronicled a group of young activists who worked with a predominately black community in their struggle against poverty and low quality housing in Newark.

A huge thank you to Jakob Jakobsen, who moderated the discussion and organized the event as part of Interference Archive’s current exhibition Free Education! Rooted in an examination of the history of the Free University of New York, the exhibition aims to generate conversation within our community–across generations and socio-economic realities –about what it looks like to reimagine possibilities for education. The exhibition is currently running at Interference Archive through January 27, 2019.  Thanks also to Norman Fruchter and Robert Machover.

Music: "Hello Vietnam," by Johnny Wright. 

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 57: Free Education!

This episode of Audio Interference features highlights from an event at the archive with Keith Brooks and Phil Brown, in which they shared their experiences in the critical psychology movement that was a part of the revolutionary environment at Alternate U.  Phil and Keith helped set up the organization Psychologists for a Democratic Society (an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society), which published a newspaper under the same name. 

Radical psychology and the politics of mental illness were an important part of social movements in the 1970s and 1980s, and central issues in free education experiments, including Alternate U. In 1970, Keith Brooks ran a course called Towards a Radical Psychology, centered around psychology in the context of the global liberation struggle and the questions of “what is its role and whose side is it on?” Phil Brown ran a course called Demystification of Contemporary Psychology, challenging what he called the “Myth of Mental Illness.”

Music: "The Birds & The Bees" by The 2 Bears.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 60: Radical Psychology at Alternate U

You can’t see them, but the skies above New York City hold a tangle of transgressive, culture-bearing radio signals. They’re sent from secret rooftop transmitters and pulse imperceptibly across the five boroughs, bringing familiar sounds to simple FM radios in homes and shops throughout tight-knit immigrant neighborhoods. These underground stations are often called pirates for broadcasting on the FM band without a government-issued license.In this episode, we’re sharing excerpts from an event at Interference Archive in July, which featured a conversation between David Goren and Joan Martinez.  The event was presented in relation to our summer exhibition, Resistance Radio: The People’s Airwaves, which looked at the history of radio as a medium for grassroots movements and their organizing work.

David Goren is an award winning radio producer and audio archivist based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s created programming for the BBC World Service, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Wall Street Journal magazine, NPR’s Lost and Found Sound series, On the Media, and Afropop Worldwide as well as audio-based installations for the Proteus Gowanus gallery, and the Ethnographic Terminalia Collective. In 2016 he was an artist-in-residence at Wave Farm, a center for the Transmission Arts. Over the past two years David has released “Outlaws of the Airwaves: The Rise of Pirate Radio Station WBAD” for KCRW’s Lost Notes Podcast and The Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map which was featured in The New Yorker Magazine.

Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map: https://www.pirateradiomap.com/
David Goren's audio documentary, "New York City Pirates of the Air": https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p076bp3y
"Outlaws of the Airwaves: The Rise of Pirate Radio Station WBAD": https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/lost-notes/outlaws-of-the-airwaves-the-rise-of-pirate-radio-station-wbad

Joan “Radio Free Joanie” Martinez is a Brooklyn-born-and-raised Haitian-American. She attended Brooklyn College twice as an undergrad and is currently working on her Master’s Thesis about “pirate radio” in Brooklyn. She’s laid the groundwork to becoming a successful on-air talent as a podcast host. Pegged as opinionated since a teenager and a smart alec, she brings a perspective that is usually elusive to the diaspora– a female voice that represents the children of Haiti’s “Lost Generation.” She straddles two worlds–the traditional Haitian household and an American growing up in America. She is an enigma at first. Her last name confuses the people she tries to talk to–she’s often pegged as a Latino that just happens to know Haitian-Kreyol. But after a minute of talking to her, people are at ease and fascinated that she is Haitian-American. She speaks the language though her name is Latino and her citizenship is American. Some are still standoffish to her and brush her off. She remains resilient however, a trait found in the Haitian people. They thrive from adversity and feed off obstacles. She is the product of her environment and brings this to her radio broadcasting.

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 68: Brooklyn Pirate Radio

AK Thompson is an author, activist, and social theorist. Over the summer, he came to Interference Archive to speak about his newest book, Premonitions. Drawing on that material, he explored the relationship between citation and social movements and brought out a new understanding of the political role of archivists.

For accompanying slides, visit: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Vrn2-lsRpR-zKhHye8apmWj-6D8NLR4Do7Aeaf25VNI/edit?usp=sharing

Music: Better Things by Cool Runnings

Produced by Interference Archive

Audio Interference 70: Citation and the Archive

This Episode is a recording of the event “We the People won’t go: LES Artists on the Squatter Movement.”  Amy Starecheski moderates a discussion with Seth Tobocman, Fly, and Maggie Wrigley. They share their experiences as both squatters and artists in the LES of NY in the 80’s. They talk about the role of art in the fight to stay in the neighborhood, in the fight for affordable and safe housing for themselves and their neighbors. 

To see more of Seth Tobocman's work: https://www.sethtobocman.com/
To read about Maggie's book: An Architecture of Change, Building a Better world: https://unmpress.com/books/architecture-change/9780826346865
To see more of Fly's work: http://flyoart.blogspot.com/ 

This panel was a part of an exhibition and series of events at the archive in Oct 2019-Feb 2020 called Building for Us: Stories of Homesteading and Cooperative Housing. 

Audio Interference is produced by the Interference Archive, an all volunteer run archive of social movement material.

Music: "Stuck in New York" Three Chord Monte with Joe Block, live at WFMU September, 2005

"Stuck in New York"

Audio Interference 74: We The People Won't Go

Letters from Comrades on the Inside: In this episode, we hear from Andrea Benson, a contributor to Survived and Punished's Inside-Outside Newsletter about her experiences as an incarcerated person and her thoughts on justice and abolition. 

This episode of Audio Interference is part of a series in collaboration with Survived and Punished, a coalition of defense campaigns and grassroots groups committed to eradicating the criminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and the culture of violence that contributes to it. 

Visit audiointerference.org to listen to more letters from their comrades on the inside as well as a longer interview with two Survived and Punished Members. Visit www.survivedandpunishedny.org to read Survived & Punished NY’s newsletters and explore their work. We'd also like to thank Lae Sway, Yves Tong Nguyen, Heena, Zoe Vongtau, Red Schulte, Mariah Hill, and Martina Ilunga, along with everyone else at Survived & Punished, for working with us on this episode.

To learn more about Survived and Punished NY, visit survivedandpunishedny.org

Read the latest edition of Survived and Punished’s newsletter, Free : Survivors: https://www.survivedandpunishedny.org/newsletter-campaign/

Music from this episode (in order of appearance):

“Divide” by Six Time Users, from the album, Live at WFMU for Janky Ray’s Radio Riot 6/16/18

WFMU for Janky Ray’s Radio Riot

“Divide”

Audio Interference: 77.3 Archiving Abolition—Andrea Benson

Letters from Comrades on the Inside: In this episode, we hear "A Quarter of a Century," a song by Ivie, a comrade on the inside whose story is uplifted by Survived and Punished. It references her campaign to free herself from a 25 to life sentence and was recorded over the phone from Bedford Hills prison, a maximum security correctional facility in Bedford Hills, NY. In the middle of the song, you'll hear an accompanying rap by another comrade, Sassi, who is also incarcerated at Bedford Hills. 

This episode of Audio Interference is part of a series in collaboration with Survived & Punished NY, a coalition of defense campaigns and grassroots groups committed to eradicating the criminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and the culture of violence that contributes to it.

Visit audiointerference.org to listen to more letters from Survived & Punished's comrades on the inside, as well as a longer interview with two Survived & Punished members. Visit www.survivedandpunishedny.org to read Survived & Punished NY’s newsletters and explore their work.

A huge thank you to Ivie and Sassi for sharing their song. We'd also like to thank Lae Sway, Yves Tong Nguyen, Heena, Zoe Vongtau, Red Schulte, Mariah Hill, and Martina Ilunga, along with everyone else at Survived & Punished, for working with us on this episode.

To learn more about Survived and Punished NY, visit survivedandpunishedny.org

Read the latest edition of Survived and Punished’s newsletter, Free : Survivors: https://www.survivedandpunishedny.org/newsletter-campaign/

Music from this episode (in order of appearance):

“Divide” by Six Time Users, from the album, Live at WFMU for Janky Ray’s Radio Riot 6/16/18

Audio Interference Episode 77.6: Archiving Abolition—A Quarter of a Century

“The city had so many buildings, it had no ability to manage them themselves, no ability to even outsource the management…if you were alive and breathing and raised your hand, you could have a building in the city of New York.” — Charles Laven

In New York in the early 1970s, government disinvestment coupled with widespread landlord neglect and abandonment, gave rise to squatting, urban homesteading, and other forms of self-help housing. Residents took control of city-owned land and buildings, and developed or rehabilitated their own housing. The ultimate goal for many of these tenants was to take their buildings out of the speculative housing market and own them collectively and democratically. Today, around 1,300 resident-controlled, low-income housing cooperatives exist in New York City, providing some of the most deeply affordable and stable housing in the city. 

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, or UHAB, grew out of the self-help housing movement. UHAB was founded in 1973, and started by working with self-organized groups of tenants to convert homesteading projects into limited-equity cooperatives, affordable in perpetuity and owned by their tenants. 

In this episode, we are sharing excerpts of an oral history of UHAB, conducted by researcher Conor Snow in 2020 and featuring interviews with Charles Laven, Fernando Alarcon, Ayo Harrington, and Ann Henderson. Thank you to UHAB, and to Charles, Ayo, Ann, Fernando and Conor for granting us permission to share this audio with you.

For more information about UHAB: https://uhab.org/

For more information about Interference Archive’s exhibition in collaboration with UHAB, “Building for Us: Stories of Homesteading and Cooperative Housing”: https://interferencearchive.org/building-for-us-stories-of-homesteading-and-cooperative-housing/

For previous Audio Interference episodes on similar topics, check out:
Episode 74, “We the People Won’t Go” (https://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-74-we-the-people-wont-go/)
Episode 47 “Lower East Side Community Gardens” (https://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-47-lower-east-side-community-gardens/) 
Episode 31 “Squatting on the Lower East Side” (https://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-31-squatting-on-the-lower-east-side/)  
Episode 23 “Brooklyn Housing Struggle” (https://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-23-brooklyn-housing-struggle/). 

Music: “Bathed in Fine Dust” by Andy G. Cohen and “Tribal” by David Szesztay, both from the Free Music Archive. 

Produced by Interference Archive.

Audio Interference 78: Oral History of UHAB

Volunteer Coordinator Sophie Glidden-Lyon explains why handbooks are among her favorite items at Interference Archive. 

Audio Interference is produced by Interference Archive. To learn more visit www.interferencearchive.org

Music in this episode:
"Arizona Moon," "Palms Down" "Calisson" "The Cornice" & “Dusting,”by Blue Dot Sessions - www.sessions.blue
Theme in G” by Poddington Bear

Audio Interference 79: Handbooks

Interference Archive is a social space, exhibition venue, and open stacks archive of movement culture, based in Brooklyn. 

Interference Archive

Popular tracks