Wave Farm Artist-in-Residence: Kamikaze Jones

Aug 13, 2021 - Aug 22, 2021
Wave Farm + WGXC Acra Studio

5662 Route 23 | Acra, NY 12405 | 518-622-2598
http://wavefarm.org/

Kamikaze Jones with his CB in hand

Kamikaze Jones with his CB in hand. Photographed by Alon Koppel Photography. (Aug 18, 2021)

Kamikaze Jones broadcasting Over and Out

Kamikaze Jones broadcasting Over and Out. (Aug 26, 2021)

Kamikaze Jones broadcasting Over and Out (2)

Kamikaze Jones broadcasting Over and Out (2). (Aug 26, 2021)

Kamikaze Jones portrait at Wave Farm

Kamikaze Jones portrait at Wave Farm. Photographed by Alon Koppel Photography. (Aug 19, 2021)

Kamikaze Jones Portrait Image

Kamikaze Jones Portrait Image. Courtesy the artist. (Mar 23, 2021)

Over and Out is an experimental radio play that mines the history of—and utilizes—CB radio to sonically investigate the underrepresented legacies of gay cruising culture in the trucker community. CB radio in the United States has historically subversive connotations: primarily as a tool to evade police detection during the 1973 oil crisis, in which a nationally mandated speed limit hindered truck drivers’ productivity and earnings. CB radios were further implemented as a means of organizing blockades to protest the speed limit and, concurrently, to discreetly facilitate sex work. The implicit risks of chance homosexual encounters on the open road (exposure, arrest, persecution) were significantly reduced by the ‘misuse’ of these devices. For this piece, in addition to the manipulation of archival and field recordings, Kamikaze will quite literally ‘cruise the airwaves’ of the Hudson Valley and incorporate the raw recordings of his encounters to explore the innately queer hauntologies and dissident materialities of CB radio. How does CB radio, an arguably outmoded tool that is nevertheless still used today, continue to inform sexual ideologies? Has the lineage of these technologies moved further away from—or closer to—a homosocial syntax? To what extent have these devices permanently sculpted the semiotics of queer consciousness? It is Kamikaze’s objective to immerse himself in these conceptual inquiries as both an active participant and a sonic medium, to receive and transmit some of the spectral mysteries that exist within these obscured correspondences.

Kamikaze Jones is an interdisciplinary artist whose work often explores extended vocal technique, queer hauntologies, and ritualized erotic transcendence. His recent practice has been focused on cultivating both sonic and sculptural sanctuary for the ghosts of public sex. He is a co-founder of The Anchoress Syndicate, a poetry and performance collective based in New York City. instagram.com/kamikazejoness