AIR, Art International Radio is turning one-year-old and we are happy to say that, after learning to walk, talk and feed ourselves, we’re ready to move full-throttle into our terrible twos. But, as with any increasingly self-sufficient toddler, we still rely upon the generosity and caring of others. We are a free radio station and need the support of our listeners in order to create new programming, continue our arts outreach endeavors and sustain ourselves in all the ways non-profits must. So, like a babe upon a mother’s lap, we kindly ask for your selfless regard: any amount is greatly appreciated and, unlike a mother’s love, entirely tax deductible. You can contact us by email at info@artonair.org or by phone at 212-233-1096. Fifty dollars alone will add a whole new program to our schedule.

First, some exciting news for the new year: AIR is currently pursuing opportunities to broadcast terrestrially as well as online. The Local Community Radio Act, which would allow hundreds of non-commercial radio stations to broadcast locally as low power FM stations, is currently on its way to a Senate vote after being passed by the House of Representatives. We urge you to call or write to your Senators in support of this act. To learn more about this issue, please check out Prometheus Radio Project's continued coverage of its progression; if you would like to pass along an email to your Senators, Free Press offers a quick-and-easy and effective form to fill out. The passage of this uniquely important bill would be a terrific boon not only to AIR but to smaller community stations as well.

Before moving on to the abundance of new programs and events planned for our second year, a reminder of all we’ve done in our first:

• AIR’s home, the Clocktower Gallery, received a full renovation over the summer, and it emerged from the metamorphosis as both a better operational recording studio and, once again, a functioning gallery space. We are home to a Performance Gallery, two recording studios, three studios for radio theater, a Broadcast Journalism studio, administrative offices and a lounge library.
• AIR’s first planned exhibition opened to the public in August, featuring new work by Mary Heilmann, Tony Oursler and Sabina Streeter, as well as the re-installation of Todd Eberle’s Hi-Fi series throughout the Clocktower space. The official press release may be found here.
• Radio Highlights: Gary Indiana transformed the vigorously acrobatic prose of his most recent novel, The Shanghai Gesture, into a nine-part, six-hour standalone marvel of literary recitation; the Clocktower recording studio was turned into a kitchen for artist and chef Marja Samsom’s cooking program; and in The Clocktower Oral History Project, Nancy Hwang interviewed many of the artists and gallerists who have come to know the Clocktower during the many stages of its 37-year history, among them Richard Nonas, Jeffrey Deitch, Joel Shapiro, Ann Magnuson, Vito Acconci and AIR founder Alanna Heiss.
• New programs have featured such hosts as artist and publisher Phong Bui, artists Jane Kaplowitz and Will Corwin and Asian Contemporary Art Week Director Leeza Ahmady, each offering distinct and invaluable perspectives on a tremendous array of cultural topics and events. All are recorded in AIR's Clocktower studios.
• AIR’s Performance Gallery was host to three days of rehearsals for the New York premiere of Italian Futurist noise instruments the Intonarumori before they took the stage for their historic Town Hall performance.
• As the official radio station for PERFORMA09, AIR was granted access to the full breadth of the event’s offerings, resulting in a 30-segment special that features artist interviews, on-site documentation, and roving reports with such artists as Terence Koh, Arto Lindsay, Jen DeNike, Fischerspooner, Alex Singh, Kalup Linzy, Yoendoo Jung and Omer Fast.
• Our 12-part series Revolutions in Public Practice, co-produced with Creative Time and the New York Public Library, records the efforts of over forty artists and activists – among them Amy Goodman, The Yes Men, Sharon Hayes, Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Minerva Cuervas and Reverend Billy – to activate social change through unique methods.
• We now have an iPhone application that allows users to tune in to AIR’s stream and selected weekly programs. The application can be downloaded for free from the App Store by searching for “artonair”.
• Our continued partnerships with such organizations as BOMB Magazine, 192 Books, PennSound, HERE Arts Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, West Harlem Arts Fund, Asian Contemporary Art Week and many more here and abroad have ensured and facilitated, and will only continue to ensure and facilitate, our commitment to producing and documenting the most exciting new work currently being made.

A downright plethora of new programs and projects marks our plans for the coming year, which we will kick off with a premiere of James Franco's experimental films and photographs in AIR's Performance Gallery. 2010 will also mark the debut of our radio theater project, in which artists will be selected to collaborate with playwrights, directors and actors to create a set for an audio play; recordings of these programs will air on our website and the sets will be available to visitors for limited viewings. The artist duo Lovett/Codagnone will inaugurate the series with a piece scheduled to run from March through May in Studio 1; longtime AIR friend Kalup Linzy will begin production on his piece in Studio 2 soon after; and Studio 3 will be given over to Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman, fresh off a similar exploit in spatial occupation and recreation at Deitch Projects. In March, Laurie Anderson will launch her long-awaited weekly midnight-hour series from the Clocktower, giving AIR listeners one respectable reason to be at their computers into the witching hour. We are developing new programming geared specifically toward children, with the intention of doing nothing less than revolutionizing the way we interact with our post-K, prepubescent youth; we are also creating a news division of the station, which we intend to have a similar effect, albeit on arts news, not children. This all in an effort not merely to branch out – through our new programs and performance events series – but also to explore more deeply and integrally the arts community.

Whether as a listener, a donor or both, you have been of fundamental importance to the growth of AIR, Art International Radio. Thank you for your ears in this first year of ours; we look forward to filling them with as many exciting new programs and shows as we can in our second.

Best Wishes for a New Year,
The AIR Team