Transmission Artist
TIANNA KENNEDY
See also: Ferrum Virgo, Twisty Cat
Kennedy’s experiments in transmission began as monthly improvisatory radio broadcasts in Bushwick, Brooklyn and now include performances, installations, sculpture, sound, video, writing and teaching. Though she has worked with many collaborators, Tianna has been particularly grateful to Chad Laird for 18 19 20, Greta Byrum for Aporias 1 & 2, and Tarikh Korula for our Archaeoacoustic Stylus.
In conjunction with her own projects and performances, Tianna works with art/community groups such as The City Reliquary, Madagascar Institute, Glowlab, Eat Records, Dome Theatre Company, and others to help organize events or with their transmission projects and/or online streaming. She also helps to bring about art/activist/community projects such as the following:
Kennedy was a founding member of the August Sound Coalition, an autonomous media project, which, in one manifestation, created a popular Art and Action Radio station coincident with the 2004 Republican National Convention and protests in New York City, and subsequently received a Best of 2004 music in Art Forum.
She was also a founding member of the Empty Vessel Project, an Action, Art and Design Center fostering projects focused on Sustainable Living in Urban Landscapes. As a public access point to the Canal for the surrounding neighborhood, the Empty Vessel Project attempted to foster a network and community in touch with the waterfront. As with Tianna's transmission work, the Empty Vessel Project was about attempting to create points of public access to increasingly privatized public resources.
Tianna gives free103point9 radio labs upon your request. Kennedy has a Masters in Perfromance Studies from New York University. She is interested in live art and geography, and has written for liveartmagazine, Reckless Sleepers, and Glowlab, as well as for academic publications with her geography-professor mother, Tina Kennedy, and urban designer sister Melisa Kennedy. Kennedy has also taught Radio Culture and Sight, Sound and Motion at Brooklyn College in the department of Television and Radio.
Kennedy is active in the New York experimental music scene both as an organizer and as a musician. According to Time Out her ensembles are ‘marked by chance and joy,’ and collectively they are ‘about as predictable as chimps in a mall.’
Tianna has worked with producers such as Dave Sitek and Jim Waters. Her current collaborators and bands include: Stars Like Fleas, Ferrum Virgo, Daniel Carter Quartet, Mike Wexler, Hannah Marcus, Zeke Healy, Foxy Propositions (with Kevin Shea), and Twisty Cat.
During the day, these days, she spends her time recording books on tape and sanding, staining, and waxing wood for money.
LINKS
Works
- Radio Action III (AD034) (Dispatch Series Release) free103point9 Transmission Artists, June 18, 2008
- 181920 (Video Work) Tianna Kennedy and Chad Laird, 2008
- Free for La Superette 2007 (Dispatch Series Release) Various Artists, Dec. 1, 2007
- Crossed Circuits (Dispatch Series Release) Various Artists, 2005
- Radio 4x4 at Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland (Radio 4x4) May 24, 2005
- Microradio Sound Walk: Warsaw (Microradio Sound Walk) May 21, 2005
- Radio 4x4, Anthology Film Archives (Radio 4x4) April 27, 2005
- Restored Archeoacoustic Recording Kit and Documentation (Installation/Sculpture) Tianna Kennedy and Tarikh Korula,
Exhibitions & Events
- Radio Action III: Online Radio Program, June 18, 2008 – Aug. 30, 2008 (Curated by free103point9 in collaboration with Barbara Held)
- Radio Action III Performance & CD Release , Aug. 7, 2008: 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
- Online Performance of "When Radios Sleep" for RWM MACBA Opening, June 18, 2008: 1:30 p.m. – 1:50 p.m.
- GRAND OPENING GALA Long Island City Museum of Natural History, May 31, 2008: 8 p.m. – June 1, 2008: 1 a.m. (Curated by Jeff Thompson)
- Noise! 2008, May 8, 2008: 10 p.m. – May 11, 2008: 1 a.m.
- BYOTV, March 19, 2008 – April 27, 2008 (Curated by The Video Gentlemen)
- Radio Lab: What is Transmission Art?, April 14, 2008: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. (Curated by free103point9)
- free103point9 NYC Staff join NPR at the Whitney Biennial , April 9, 2008: 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.
- Radia_"Snow Dance", April 4, 2008: 2 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
- Sonic Fragments, March 28, 2008: 4 p.m. – March 29, 2008: 9 p.m. (Curated by Betsey Biggs)
- NYC Grassroots Media Conference 2008, March 2, 2008
- Eyebeam's Free Media Workshop, Feb. 16, 2008: 1 p.m. – 6 p.m.
- Apestaartje / Incunabulum Festival Day 1, Feb. 1, 2008: 9 p.m. – Feb. 2, 2008: midnight
- Beesnest_01.30.08, Jan. 30, 2008: 8 p.m.
- Radio Lab: Circuit Bending, Jan. 10, 2008: 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
- Carnegie Hall's Classroom Music Appreciation Course, Jan. 9, 2008: 1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
- Nosferatu, et tu?, Oct. 26, 2007: 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.
- Redefining Media: Media Democracy and Community Radio, Oct. 19, 2007: 7 p.m. – Oct. 21, 2007: 6 p.m.
- ITP Radio Lab, Oct. 16, 2007: 8 p.m. – 9 p.m.
- Radio Retreat/Festival 2007, Oct. 13, 2007: noon – Oct. 14, 2007: 5 p.m.
- 2007 Wave Farm Installations and Special Projects, July 7, 2007 – Oct. 14, 2007 (Curated by free103point9)
- Obscene and Apparent, Sept. 23, 2007: 9 a.m. – Sept. 24, 2007: 1 a.m. (Curated by Zachery Dempster and Nastya O.)
- Radio Lab: transmission art, Sept. 20, 2007: 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.
- Radio Lab and Radio 4x4 for Untitled 2002 (he promised), Aug. 19, 2007: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
- Tune(Out)))side 2007, July 7, 2007: 3 p.m. – 9 p.m.
- In Conversation with Heather Wagner and Tianna Kennedy, May 30, 2007: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
- Fourth Annual NYC Grassroots Media Conference, Feb. 24, 2007: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
- [silence], Jan. 31, 2007 – Feb. 24, 2007
- 4:33pm Michael Graeve + Tianna Kennedy, Feb. 17, 2007: 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.
- free103point9 @ dorkbot, Feb. 7, 2007: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
- free103point9 performances for Frequencies, Feb. 4, 2007: 2 a.m. – 6 p.m.
- Christopher McIntyre @ Roulette, Dec. 8, 2006: 8 p.m. – 11 p.m.
- Habitats, Nov. 9, 2006 – Nov. 12, 2006
- Birds Nest Live from the Empty Vessel, June 22, 2006: 10 p.m. – June 23, 2006: midnight
- Triangulation: Sky Wrecks, Tianna Kennedy, Matty McDermitt, June 20, 2006: 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
- Deep Wireless, May 3, 2006: 1 p.m. – May 28, 2006: 6 p.m.
- The Birds Nest: Tianna Kennedy and Jordi Wheeler, May 18, 2006: 10 p.m. – May 19, 2006: midnight
- free103point9 @ Observatori Festival, May 5, 2006 – May 7, 2006
- free103point9 Volunteer Meeting, April 20, 2006: 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.
- free103point9 9th Anniversary Show, New + Used, March 25, 2006: 4 p.m. – March 26, 2006: 1 a.m.
- ScopeOnAir, March 10, 2006 – March 13, 2006
- Becoming>Millennium, Dec. 3, 2005: 8 p.m.
- TMP: adventures in anarchitecture and atmography, Nov. 20, 2005: 4 a.m. – noon
- On The Air, Nov. 2, 2005 – Nov. 5, 2005
- Radio 4x4, Oct. 27, 2005: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
- Radio anarchitecture with the gold drop, Sept. 29, 2005: 1 p.m. – Oct. 2, 2005
- apodio radio lab, Sept. 30, 2005: 7 p.m. – 11 p.m.
- Benefit for Empty Vessel, Sept. 2, 2005: 7 p.m. – Sept. 3, 2005: 1 a.m.
- Tune(Out)))side, July 4, 2005: 3 p.m. – 10 p.m. (Curated by free103point9)
- Crossed Circuits, April 23, 2005 – June 6, 2005
- Radio 4x4: Gdansk, May 24, 2005
- Microradio Sound Walk: Warsaw, May 21, 2005
- Radio 4x4: Making Waves, April 27, 2005
- Second NYC Grassroots Media Conference, April 9, 2005 – April 10, 2005
- Tune(In))) Brooklyn, March 12, 2005: 8 p.m. – March 13, 2005: 1 a.m.
- Damian Catera deCompositional Duets with Ben Owen, Tianna Kenned, Dec. 11, 2004
- Stubblefield's Black Box: An Intricate Game of Position, Nov. 12, 2004 – Dec. 10, 2004 (Curated by Tianna Kennedy)
- Radio Lab at Columbia University, Nov. 29, 2004: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
- RNC Radio Lab, Aug. 22, 2004: 3 p.m. – 6 p.m.
- Tune(In))) Santa Fe, July 17, 2004
- Sous Les Pavas, La Radio! at Psy.Geo.Conflux 04, May 13, 2004 – May 16, 2004 (Curated by Tianna Kennedy)
- Psy.Geo.Conflux Radio Lab, May 13, 2004: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
- 1st NYC Grassroots Media Conference, Feb. 28, 2004: midnight – Feb. 29, 2004: 6 p.m.
- Tianna Kennedy, Feb. 19, 2004
- Tianna Kennedy, Ohal Wofford, Doomfishtheater, Tunde (TV on the, Jan. 29, 2004
- Tianna Kennedy, Ohal Wofford, Doomfishtheater, and Ben Owen, Jan. 15, 2004
- Great Small Works Fourth Radio Cabaret, Nov. 25, 2003: 8 p.m. – 11 p.m. (Curated by Tianna Kennedy)
- Breakdown, April 19, 2003
ARCHIVE
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Audio
- "When Radios Sleep" for RWM MACBA Opening, June 18, 2008. 061808 online radio performance from Tianna Kennedy, Anna Friz, and Twisty Cat, from Brooklyn. with special guests Ed Bear and Lea Bertucci. (audio/mpeg, 11.7 MB)
- Radio 4x4: Tianna Kennedy + Mark Anderson + Jordi Wheeler + Tyler Nolan, May 8, 2008. Opening performance at Noise! 2008 050808 at Ontological Theater, Manhattan. Radio 4x4 is a free103point9 project with four performers each playing into FM transmitters, rather than amplifiers, with radio boom boxes receiving the signals throughout the space. (audio/mpeg, 28.9 MB)
- Radia 157_Snow Dance, March 27, 2008. From the August Sound Coalition, Tianna Kennedy and James Blackshaw, Slavoj Zizek, and Tarikh Korula. (audio/mpeg, 37.4 MB)
- Daniel Carter Quartet_Beesnest_013008, Jan. 30, 2008. Live recording from Zebulon Cafe in Brooklyn. Tianna Kennedy + Ryan Sawyer + Daniel Carter + Patrick Holmes. (audio/mpeg, 42.7 MB)
- Hannah Marcus + Jordi Wheeler + Mike Wexler + Tianna Kennedy_Yorkshire Wassail, Dec. 1, 2007. Track for "Free for La Superette 2007" free downloadable dispatch. Marcus: violin, gtr, harmonium, voice, production; Wheeler: piano, voice; Wexler: gtr, voice; Kennedy: cello, voice. Loosely based on an arrangement by Ralph Vaughn Williams. (audio/mpeg, 4.2 MB)
- Triangulation: Sky Wrecks, Tianna Kennedy, Maty McDermitt, Sept. 24, 2007. This week's show features a live performance by Sky Wrecks (Christy Edwards and Allie Alvarado) + Matty McDermitt + Tianna Kennedy. Radio Ruido on the decks. (audio/mpeg, 41.7 MB)
- free103point9 panel: Deep Wireles, Toronto, May 27, 2006. This panel, streamed live on free103point9 Online Radio from Toronto, Canada, introduces audiences to free103point9 and Transmission Arts defined as experimental practices in radio, video, installation, and performance utilizing the wireless spectrum. The discussion will include: the history of free103point9; touring transmission projects such as Tune(In))) , Radio 4x4 , and Microradio Sound Walk ; as well as free103point9 exhibition, performance, online radio, education, and residency programs. free103point9 Operations Manager Matt Mikas and free103point9 Special Projects Director Tianna Kennedy are on the panel. http://www.naisa.ca/RWB/sessions.html#free103point9 (audio/mpeg, 28.3 MB)
- Podcasting 101: Creating your own podcast: free103point9 radiolab at New School, Feb. 24, 2006. This is a recording of free103point9' Radio Lab workshop "Podcasting 101" at the "Media and Movements Beyond Borders" 4th Annual NYC Grassroots Media Conference. (audio/mpeg, 7.7 MB)
- Alterazioni Video collective interviewed by August Sound Coalition, Jan. 28, 2006. Tianna Kennedy interviews Paololuca Barbieri (audio/mpeg, 1.4 MB)
- Sound Drop, Oct. 2, 2005. Radio Anarchitecture with the Gold Drop (audio/mpeg, 1.5 MB)
- Radio 4x4: Gdansk, May 24, 2005. at Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, Poland (audio/mpeg, 5.1 MB)
- Lament for the Lost Soul of the Gluttunous Shopper, Nov. 26, 2004. Performance Recorded during the August Sound Coaltion's webcast on free103point9 and the Critical Mass Radio Network. (audio/mpeg, 16.1 MB)
- Stubblefield's Black Box Opening, Nov. 12, 2004. archive of first broadcast/performance (audio/mpeg, 15.0 MB)
- Tianna Kennedy: Live Report While Being Arrested at RNC Critical Mass, Aug. 27, 2004. Live on-air arrest during Republican National Convention. (audio/mpeg, 4.4 MB)
- Psy.Geo.Conflux Radio Lab at Participant, Inc., May 13, 2004. (audio/mpeg, 6.0 MB)
- PS 122 Fourth Radio Cabaret, Nov. 25, 2003. Tianna Kennedy and Great Small Works put on this show at P.S. 122 with B Owen + Radio Ruido + Tom Roe + DJ Matt Mikas: "Radio 4 x 4" Each performing into a transmitter, mixed together with radios in the space, and LoVid, Gregory Whitehead "Geronimo's Curse," Anna Friz, Lucy Raven, and Coco Rosie. (audio/mpeg, 738 bytes)
- Kennedy and Graeve 4:33pm peformance for [silence] (audio/mpeg, 11.8 MB)
- Restored Archeoacoustic Recording Kit and Documentation Sound element in installation by Tianna Kennedy and Tarikh Korula (audio/mpeg, 10.7 MB)
Video
- Radio Lab_Grassroots Media Conference 2008, March 2, 2008. "Protest Radio" workshop with Ryan Holsopple and Lee Azzarello explaing how to set up an open-source radio station taking calls with Asterisk for the protests surrounding this summer's political conventions. With Tianna Kennedy. (video/mov, 549.8 MB)
- 181920, Feb. 10, 2008. Tianna Kennedy and Chad Laird. For free103point9's contribution for a program of works for the Video Gentlemen’s BYOTV exhibition at the New American Art Union in Portland, Oregon. (video/mov, 5.9 MB)
Image
- Nosferatu Image, Oct. 25, 2007. TIanna Kennedy for Aporia (image/jpeg, 44.1 KB)
- Tianna Kennedy during Radio Retreat/Festival 2007, Oct. 14, 2007. at free103point9 Wave Farm. Tianna Kennedy's artist presentation. Pictured (clockwise from the top): Tianna Kennedy, Ryan Holsopple, Todd Merrell, Joshua Fried, Lex Bhagat, Lee Azzarello (image/jpeg, 303.0 KB)
- Tianna Kennedy, Todd Merrell, Michelle Nagai, Ben Owen during Radio 4x4 for "Untitled 2002 (he promised)", Aug. 19, 2007. at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Pictured (left to right): Michelle Nagai, Tianna Kennedy, Ben Owen, Todd Merrell. (image/jpeg, 154.1 KB)
- Tianna Kennedy, Todd Merrell, Michelle Nagai, Ben Owen during Radio 4x4 for "Untitled 2002 (he promised)", Aug. 19, 2007. at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Pictured (left to right): Michelle Nagai, Tianna Kennedy, Ben Owen, Todd Merrell, Tom Roe. (image/jpeg, 189.8 KB)
- Tianna Kennedy and Michael Graeve during 4:33 p.m. for [silence] at Gigantic ArtSpace. Photo: Dylan J. Gauthier (image/jpeg, 235.1 KB)






