For our seventh international partnership for 3hd 2020’s “ECO-centers” companion schedule, Montez Press Radio presents a day of programming. With the goal of supporting experimentation and conversation between artists, writers, and thinkers, the New York station will broadcast from their 46 Canal Street location in Chinatown over a continuous eight-hour period.
The curation follows the lines between science fiction and fact, and our relationships to nature and each other, which continue to strain as the autonomy of the masses becomes increasingly crippled under systems that seem to fall outside the bounds of accountability. But with crisis comes an opportunity to envision, and possibly re-vision, our futures, and to decide whether our humanity is something that gets taken with us or left behind.
Schedule (EST)
01:00 PM Angela Chan & El Hardwick—“Cache Histories”
02:00 PM Hanna Mattes & David Rothenberg—“Take Me To That Landscape”
03:00 PM Gonpo Singh aka Patel aka Multicultural Rhythm Stick Fun—“Multicultural Rhythm Stick Fun for Radio”
04:00 PM Sondria Writes—”Science Fiction, Sex, and Blackness”
05:00 PM ONO the Band—“Christ Reborn: Eurocentric Logic Leads To Black Erasure – Where Are Our Words?”
06:00 PM Lawrence Lek—“Sinofuturism (1839-2046 AD)”
07:00 PM Alex Traub, Alex Vadukul & Kaitlin Phillips—”Insider Baseball”
08:00 PM Paul Purgas & Matt Williams—“Indian Modernism: Design & Electronic Sound”
Program details
1pm: Angela Chan & El Hardwick—“Cache Histories”
In reference to Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction”, Angela Chan and El Hardwick use the term “Cache Histories” as a metaphor for an internet-age container, to discuss how science fiction stores histories. Angela and El also consider how our perception of time alters how we remember our past—as a way to move towards climate and digital justice.
2pm: David Rothenberg & Hanna Mattes—“Take Me To That Landscape”
Unable to see, hear, or touch each other in the real world, Rothenberg and Hanna are trying everything to break through the ‘meaninglessness’ of nature to find truth, beauty, contact, and love in a world where invisible species are constantly trying to lure us beyond our mere humanity.
3pm: Gonpo Singh aka Patel aka Multicultural Rhythm Stick Fun—“Multicultural Rhythm Stick Fun”
Music and words for children of the world / locked in a magnificent 5G trance / which they must steer like a ship / in rapturous trade winds from / East and West.
4pm: Sondria Writes—“Science Fiction, Sex, and Blackness”
Discussion on blackness and science fiction (including excerpt from Octavia Butler’s POSITIVE OBSESSION), Black sex and science fiction, and an original sci-fi/erotica reading by Sondria.
5pm: ONO the Band—“Christ Reborn: Eurocentric Logic Leads To Black Erasure – Where Are Our Words?”
An exploration of ONO member Travis’ new writing series based on the failures in Eurocentric philosophy and logicians to accurately consider the Black/African experience. Here, the Chicago-based experimental band member examines how that coincides with Black erasure, and also the archival/preservation process. Erasure of Black history crosses quickly into the arts realm, and ONO will discuss how ‘preservation’ has affected Black artists and writers—how it hasn’t been done properly, how creations have been stolen, and how this impacts literacy. P Michael will be providing sonic, beat and sample-driven foundations as they talk through it.
6pm: Lawrence Lek—“Sinofuturism (1839-2046 AD)”
“Sinofuturism” is an invisible movement. A specter already embedded in a trillion industrial products, a billion individuals, and a million veiled narratives. It is a movement, not based on individuals, but on multiple overlapping flows. Flows of populations, of products, and of processes. Because Sinofuturism has arisen without conscious intention or authorship, it is often mistaken for contemporary China—but it is not. It is a science fiction that already exists.
7pm: Alex Traub, Alex Vadukul & Kaitlin Phillips—”Insider Baseball”
Phillips talks to two of her best friends, Alex Traub and Alex Vadukul. Both grew up in NYC and write about its many characters for the New York Times obituary section. We’ll discuss the art of the obituary, the peculiarities of Upper East Side culture, and our preference for polarizing locals (Lucien, Reggio, and Mimi’s, respectively).
8pm: Paul Purgas & Matt Williams—“Indian Modernism: Design & Electronic Sound”
Conversation interspersed with music around Paul Purgas’ “We Found Our Own Reality” exhibition, currently on at London’s Camden Art Centre. The exhibition and events programme by the London-based artist and musician brings together architecture, furniture, textiles and sound to explore India’s first electronic music studio, founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India. The project explores the technological and experimental ambition of the studio across its four-year lifespan at a moment of unprecedented national transformation and cultural exchange between Western and Indian Modernist ideologies.
