Our workshop got off to a great start thanks to 28 enthusiastic attendees. Much of the time was spent introducing ourselves and collaboratively building a list of associations with the word “programming” in a jamboard. Here’s some of what we came up with, which I’ve loosely reordered to start with the more imagistic associations, moving into the more abstract and then aspirational ideas about what programming and deprogramming could become.
paper programs at events
automation and clocks (in radio); constraint
music synthesizer programming – creating patches and presets
formats
the sound story of a radio station
recorded voice as material in radio
concerts: what is played for an audience; who gets to make decisions about who + what is listened to
web programming – creating input/output structure
how we interface with machines on their own terms
tennis metaphor: sending something and seeing what comes back
straight line, linear, Terminator robots!
centralized control of peripherals to make something specific happen
something pre-ordained, or pre-organized
biological processes, DNA
organizing (thoughts and content)
going to work
sterile
rationalization
manufacturing consent
repetition, predictability, reliability
hospitality
anticipating the listener experience – who is the audience?
developing other artists’ work – listening
developing seamless inclusivity and inspiration
rethinking and understanding radio editing/producing
using multimedia and found media (e.g. voicemails)
historical exploration
structure, order; re-thinking and interrupting that
dechronoprogramming and morphomoving
deprogramming to face the mass media
deprogramming and/as decolonization
In the latter part of the session, a mini-lecture walked through five senses of “programming” to do give a historical overview of how this notion has developed in and alongside American radio. The slides from this presentation are here.
Agenda
Welcome from Wave Farm Executive Director Galen Joseph-Hunter
Land acknowledgement
Session overview and introduction
Brief participant introductions plus brainstorm
What do you do that you hope to develop through this workshop?
What’s an association that comes to your mind with the word “programming?”
Mini-lecture: Five senses of (radio) programming
Controlling time in American radio’s first decade
The programmer as convener in Indigenous and other community radio traditions
Music radio formats, automation, and the roots of algorithmic media ills
Programmability: computational culture and Cold War anxieties
“Software for People,” the sonic event score, and bases for deprogramming