Friday May 29th

9:00 am Keynote Address
Instances of radiophonic panic, or towards a theory of transmission
by Brandon LaBelle
The mechanics of broadcast media, in extending the nervous system as McLuhan early on proposes, in turn makes highly sensitive the relation of transmission and reception. Connectivity becomes a volatile and ideological point measuring the climate of social exchange and community life. Following such thinking, I'll explore instances of radiophonic panic, teasing out moments of breakdown so as to examine the nerve endings of radio. Through such a lens acts of transmission will be underscored as bending the limits of both terrestrial borders and emotional states.

10:15 am Short Break

10:30 Break-out sessions:

1/ How to Pitch
with Paul Ingles
This session will cover how to successfully pitch your radio works to acquirers of independent work. The elements of a strong story pitch will be explained and other strategies will be offered for getting your work heard.

2/ Beach Keening: A Wake in Sound (performance & talk)
Due to unforseen circumstances, Andrea Dancer is regretfully unable to participate in this year's RWB conference.
with Andrea Dancer
This soundscape-poetry performance, a piece of ec[h]o-theatre, is situated on an abandoned First-Nations site on the Gulf Islands. It explores how poetry reconstitutes place through sound and rhythm; how sound reasserts place in spoken word; and its use in the radio feature as art form. An elucidating talk follows.

3/ Listening to radio soundscapes
with Andra McCartney
Participants will hear short excerpts from two examples of Outfront shows using soundscape recordings (Shut up and listen, and Eavesdropping on the Waterfront), and discuss different approaches to working with soundscape on radio. Participants are encouraged to bring short excerpts (up to two minutes long) of soundscape recordings that they would like to use in radio work, for discussion during the session.

4/ podcasting
with Mark Blevis
NOTE: This session has limited spots available and is now full on this day
Learn the steps necessary to make your audio programs available and accessible online, the tools that make this possible, how to promote your online presence, online resources and issues related to licensing in the digital age. Mark Blevis will discuss free and almost free tools and services that can help you increase your online profile and engage with your audience in the process.

noon Lunch provided

1:00 pm Break-out sessions:

1/ Listening Session
with Gregory Whitehead
NOTE: This session has limited spots available and is now full on both days
Limited to 5 participants per session (pre-registration required), each participant is asked to bring a 5 minute (max) example of a radio production that he or she has completed or is currently working on and play it for comments and feedback from everyone present, including moderators Hélène Prévost (Can) and Gregory Whitehead (USA).

2/ Wireless Imaginations workshop
with Hector Centeno
This workshop will let you experience what radio transmission is like and how the transmission technology has been monopolized by the specialists and authorities. It would be a minimum experience of radio transmission that could also be developed into radio art and micro radio. The transmitter that the participant will make has only a 30 meter radius of transmission, but people would experience a convivial wireless imagination

3/ "Oh, Shut Up! Who needs a narrator anyway?"
with Chris Brookes
Should we -- can we -- kill the narrator, or will she keep coming back like the UnDead to spite us? And when she walks onstage, how do we write her into the cast of characters and convince her to act instead of just standing there explaining the drama to us as if we were schoolchildren? Some thoughts on narrators, narrative arc, and structural vortex.

2:30 pm Radio that reflects community
Moderated by Anna Friz, with Victoria Fenner, Marian van der Zon and Kevin Matthews (NCRA)
As the foundation of community radio in Canada supported by Universities is starting to show cracks in the foundation, what are the alternatives available? What are the community responsibilities of public radio broadcasters? What are some of the models around the world for community radio? What does the future hold for cultural diversity and community-oriented radio?

3:45 pm Soundscapes of the imagination: the grey area between fact and fiction
Moderated with introductory remarks by Andra McCartney
Gregory Whitehead, Hélène Prévost and Alessandro Bosetti
This panel will speak on the authenticity of sounds used in radio art. If seeing is believing, how is the world rendered truthfully when there is nothing to see? What are the ethical obligations of the radio artist?

5:00pm Break for dinner (not provided)

8:00 pm Deep Wireless Ensemble Performance #1 + solo performance by Kristen Roos

Saturday May 30th

9:00 am Keynote address
Night Birds and Skull Songs - deep wireless notes on the strange fate of voice, off
by Gregory Whitehead
Split the voice away from the body, and anything can happen, and usually does. As an adolescent, I fell in love with the Night Bird, whose voice came to me from beneath my pillow, late at night. The Night Bird flew on by, but that sudden love for the solitary radio voice, sent from nowhere and everywhere, burrowed into my mind, body and soul.The radiophone is a most seductive nocturnal vibration, full of vivid promise and thus embracing, concurrently, more than a hint of danger. The lonely voice, in the middle of the night (time night, cultural night, personal night) is a voice that inspires and haunts me still, and in this presentation, using lots of cuts and castings, I will try to tell you why.

10:15 am Short Break

10:30 Break-out sessions:

1/ Radio Art in Situ (moderated by Anna Friz)
with Kristen Roos, Emmanual Madan and Hank Bull
Radio does not have to exist in a blank void once the signal is beamed from the radio transmitter. This panel will explain and discuss a number of examples for radio art to be heard "in situ". In this context a radio art work is as much about the sited experience as it is about the involvement of radio. Is radio merely a technical tool in these contexts or is there something that still makes the work radio art?

2/ The Radio Documentary-Feature as Poetry, Drama and Sound-art
Due to unforseen circumstances, Andrea Dancer is regretfully unable to participate in this year's RWB conference.
with Andrea Dancer
The radio feature spans journalism to personal essay - but according to its creator, Peter Leonhardt-Braun, it is a dramatic, poetic and sound-based art form. Using material from the 2008 International Radio-Features Conference, we will critically investigate how these expectations are/are not fulfilled, listener engagement, and its present / future potential.

3/ Listening to radio soundscapes
with Andra McCartney
Participants will hear short excerpts from two examples of Outfront shows using soundscape recordings (Shut up and listen, and Eavesdropping on the Waterfront), and discuss different approaches to working with soundscape on radio. Participants are encouraged to bring short excerpts (up to two minutes long) of soundscape recordings that they would like to use in radio work, for discussion during the session

4/ podcasting
with Mark Blevis
Learn the steps necessary to make your audio programs available and accessible online, the tools that make this possible, how to promote your online presence, online resources and issues related to licensing in the digital age. Mark Blevis will discuss free and almost free tools and services that can help you increase your online profile and engage with your audience in the process.

noon Lunch provided

1:00 pm Break-out sessions:

1/ Listening Session
with Gregory Whitehead
NOTE: This session has limited spots available and is now full on both days
Limited to 5 participants per session (pre-registration required), each participant is asked to bring a 5 minute (max) example of a radio production that he or she has completed or is currently working on and play it for comments and feedback from everyone present, including moderators Hélène Prévost (Can) and Gregory Whitehead (USA).

2/ Wireless Imaginations workshop
with Hector Centeno
This workshop will let you experience what radio transmission is like and how the transmission technology has been monopolized by the specialists and authorities. It would be a minimum experience of radio transmission that could also be developed into radio art and micro radio. The transmitter that the participant will make has only a 30 meter radius of transmission, but people would experience a convivial wireless imagination.

3/ "Oh, Shut Up! Who needs a narrator anyway?"
with Chris Brookes
Should we -- can we -- kill the narrator, or will she keep coming back like the UnDead to spite us? And when she walks onstage, how do we write her into the cast of characters and convince her to act instead of just standing there explaining the drama to us as if we were schoolchildren? Some thoughts on narrators, narrative arc, and structural vortex.

4/ How to Pitch
with Paul Ingles
This session will cover how to successfully pitch your radio works to acquirers of independent work. The elements of a strong story pitch will be explained and other strategies will be offered for getting your work heard.

2:30 pm From Radio to Multichannel Performance
Moderated by Neil Sandell and Darren Copeland
with CBC Outfront artists Hélène Prévost, Paolo Pietropaolo, Andra McCartney and Iain Reid
Every year the conference includes a panel from the artists commissioned by NAISA and CBC Outfront. This session is an opportunity to debate issues that emerged from the collaboration and for artists to provide background and additional insight on the approach they took to the work.

3:45pm Lifelines for the Radio Artist and Independent Producer
(moderated by Paolo Pietropaolo) with Paul Ingles, Tom Roe (free103point9), Chris Brookes and Mark Blevis
What are the available outlets available for disseminating your independent radio production - whether it is a radio art piece or a radio documentary? Who are the new listeners? How have these new dissemination avenues influenced new directions in form and content?

5:00pm Radio Party

5:30pm Dinner Break (not provided)

8:00PM Deep Wireless Ensemble Performance #2 & Solo performance by Alessandro Bosetti
by Alessandro Bosetti