This project originated from a desire/idea to match and contest the wattage of the most powerful radio broadcasting company of the Twin Cities: Clear Channel. Operating with over 50,000 watts, the Clear Channel’s broadcasting power dominates the airwaves—a public domain by definition—in Minneapolis and St. Paul with nationally syndicated, homogeneous programming. One Person.ooOne Watt was a sculptural/media intervention with an activist spirit that attempted to redistribute, reorganize, and redirect the radio transmission potential of the Twin Cities by creating a decentralized and diversified network of radio stations.

Radio Re-Volt Workshops
In a series of free radio workshops held throughout the Twin Cities, participants created radio sculptures using preassembled microradio transmitters (with “narrowcasting” potential of about one-block radius) provided by the Walker and were also introduced by the Walker staff to issues of media ownership as well as to basic technical skills of operating the radio. Once the radio sculptures were created, the participants took the ownership of programming. While approximately 500 microradios were created during the project’s run, the project was conceived, ideally and theoretically, to continue on by workshop participants’ individual initiatives until the collective and cumulative wattage of microradios would match the broadcasting power of the Clear Channels’ transmitters.

University Avenue Broadcast
On Thursday, October 28, 2004 over 40 businesses, organizations and community centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul became their own radio stations as they participated in the University Avenue Broadcast using micro-radio transmitters distributed by members of WACTAC and Walker staff. . . .

This project originated from a desire/idea to match and contest the wattage of the most powerful radio broadcasting company of the Twin Cities: Clear Channel. Operating with over 50,000 watts, the Clear Channel’s broadcasting power dominates the airwaves—a public domain by definition—in Minneapolis and St. Paul with nationally syndicated, homogeneous programming. One Person.ooOne Watt was a sculptural/media intervention with an activist spirit that attempted to redistribute, reorganize, and redirect the radio transmission potential of the Twin Cities by creating a decentralized and diversified network of radio stations.

Radio Re-Volt Workshops
In a series of free radio workshops held throughout the Twin Cities, participants created radio sculptures using preassembled microradio transmitters (with “narrowcasting” potential of about one-block radius) provided by the Walker and were also introduced by the Walker staff to issues of media ownership as well as to basic technical skills of operating the radio. Once the radio sculptures were created, the participants took the ownership of programming. While approximately 500 microradios were created during the project’s run, the project was conceived, ideally and theoretically, to continue on by workshop participants’ individual initiatives until the collective and cumulative wattage of microradios would match the broadcasting power of the Clear Channels’ transmitters.

University Avenue Broadcast
On Thursday, October 28, 2004 over 40 businesses, organizations and community centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul became their own radio stations as they participated in the University Avenue Broadcast using micro-radio transmitters distributed by members of WACTAC and Walker staff. From noon to 9 pm the sounds of University Avenue were heard live on 97.7—an open frequency—for anyone traveling this major thoroughfare of the Twin Cities. The ambient noise of cafés, hip-hop music, political speech, and impromptu interviews made up the diverse collage of sound that attracted the attention of local media like St. Paul Pioneer Press and national press such as Weekend America, a program of American Public Media covered the event. More than 25 workshops leading to this event have also been covered by Star Tribune, Minneapolis Observer, Wired Magazine, and Minnesota Public Radio.

RAD: Radio, Access, Democracy Conference
On October 29-30, 2004 the Walker and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design sponsored a conference to convene the participants of Radio Re-Volt and to discuss the many issues surrounding micro-radio and media ownership. The event began on Friday night with a keynote speech by Tetsuo Kogawa, widely-respected sound artist, scholar of media culture, and pioneer of Japan’s Mini-FM movement. Saturday’s events featured four panel discussions, a micro transmitter building workshop, a film screening and a radio-based performance by sound artists from New York and St. Paul. Approximately 200 people participated, including some individuals who traveled from as far as Philadelphia and California.

"If the broadcasting power of the most powerful radio station in the Twin Cities is 100,000 watts, we propose a network of micro-radio transmitters that can cumulatively match this power. A movement should be set into motion in the spirit of decentralization and diversity in ownership and programming of the radio waves. Radio Re-volt!"—Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla

Jennifer Allora (b. 1974, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1971, Cuba) have been working together since 1995. They live and work in Puerto Rico, a hybrid Caribbean culture with a colonial legacy that continues to flourish in the present day under the fragile auspices of the United States. Despite...

Jennifer Allora (b. 1974, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1971, Cuba) have been working together since 1995. They live and work in Puerto Rico, a hybrid Caribbean culture with a colonial legacy that continues to flourish in the present day under the fragile auspices of the United States. Despite its tropical location and the abundant natural beauty of the surrounding region, Puerto Rico is an island where heavy industry, commerce and space exploration take precedence. It is this fertile and unusual diversity that informs the subject matter and approach behind Allora and Calzadilla's varied body of work.

Cyclones, chalk cylinders, color chromatics, computer codes, cosmic communications, colonial crimes, civil disobedience and capturing sunlight have all featured in their work. Their inventive use of materials and strong sense of the aesthetic and social, encompass art historical references and create a new artistic vocabulary within a psychological, political and social context. Radio Re-Volt: One Person .ooOne Watt was developed during their 2004 artist residency at the Walker Art Center, in collaboration with the Walker Teen Arts Council, and proposes the production of a network of microradio transmitters which can cumulatively match the power of the most powerful radio station in the Twin Cities.

Allora and Calzadilla have been featured in solo exhibitions at the Galerie Chantal Crousel (Paris, France, 2004); Lisson Gallery (London, England, 2004); and ICA Boston (Boston, US, 2004). They have participated in several group exhibitions including Common Wealth, Tate Modern (London, UK, 2003); How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age, the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, US, 2003); and Ailleurs, ici, Musee D’Art Moderne de La Ville De Paris/Arc Au Couvent Des Cordeliers (Paris, France, 2004).