Andrea Langlois et al - Islands of Resistance - Pirate Radio in Canada

Pirate Radio and Maneuver • 151
broadcasts. Listeners tuned into a commercial station would therefore
hear, for a few seconds, fragments of texts that were inserted, more or
less randomly, into official broadcasts. The 1992 Festival Interzone organized
by Le Lieu, Homélie amplitudes A1 A2 A3 A4 fonction du temps
(Homily amplitudes A1 A2 A3 A4 function of time), showcased the
algojo) (algojo duo in a performance that lasted several hours in which
the subjected body’s exhausted voice passed through the transmitter.
The performers thus appropriated all of Québec City’s Basse-Ville stations
to make them the space where random texts were interspersed
within the programs of all regular FM stations. According to Jeff, “The
listeners at home certainly encountered incomprehensible interruptions,
at the same time that they experienced — through the random
aspect of each person’s experience — an ungovernable artistic experience
with qualities beyond our control.” 14
The artist’s words above summon a theory I proposed in 1991 — that
of “polysynesthesia.” The term polysynesthesia is a neologism I created
15 to describe the phenomenon experienced by the radio art listener.
It describes the overlap of different sensorial impressions that
the listener experiences during the radio transmission, the overlap of
permeating sensations, often random or in synch with other events.
Each listener experiences a different phenomenon upon listening to
a radio work. The work, or at least its reception by the listener, thus
escapes the artist’s control and moves into multiple settings with random
parameters. This idea is meant to describe different interconnected
sensorial experiences during the listening experience. Multiple
uncontrollable factors interfered in the execution of the work and, in a
way, played the role of co-author in the performance of Homélie amplitudes
A1 A2 A3 A4 fonction du temps. This maneuver was based on the
idea of interference with existing programming, parasitizing or freeriding
or temporarily occupying the FM band without a licence. It was
a genuine critique of the fetishistic system surrounding pop music,
which is subject to the fickleness of the economy and fashion, 16 that
which the Québec composer Pierre Mercure incidentally described as
“mauvais goût ambiant” 17 (ambient bad taste).