Zero Hour is
a participatory radio performance that transforms the
city streets into a laboratory for experiments in subliminal communication.
Using a storefront or public space as a control base station,
a live broadcast is transmitted to the audience outside on
the street through
special state-of-the-art mobile headgear: tinfoil hats outfitted
with radio receivers and wireless microphones. These DIY
devices allow the audience to eavesdrop on sounds culled from historic
airtime propaganda, local radio stations, public transport service
announcements and the surrounding environment while simultaneously
redirecting their navigation through the urban landscape.
The tinfoil hat, a homemade contraption
popularized in 1930's sci-fi and still used today, is believed
to thwart hazardous mind control rays emitted by aliens, the
government, military and random evildoers. Used as a tool to
detourne participants from the typical ways they navigate familiar
public spaces, Zero Hour becomes a platform for reflecting on how public information
impacts our daily behaviors and shapes our value systems.
First performed on the streets of Buffalo,
New York in 2006, Zero Hour seeks new sites and publics for collectively re-experiencing
and reclaiming our increasingly gentrified communities.
Free103point9 provided
a live internet stream of Zero Hour's Buffalo performances
broadcast from Rustbelt Books and the Albright-Knox Museum
as part of the Infringement Festival. Performers include Kristi
Meal and Jennine Griffear. The project was developed through
a residency at Free103point9 Wave Farm.
YouTube video of Buffalo
performance
Eyewitness accounts of mysterious
white noise on the streets of Buffalo
(excerpt, 5 min, 4.6 mb mp3)
