Stirring: Transmission 

Santiago, Chile 2016 
GAM Cultural Center                                                               Hemispheric Institute NYC’s Encuentro

Collaborative performance by Johnny Forever and Gambletron for Encuentro 2016 hosted in Santiago, Chile by New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics as well as the Universidad de Chile.

In this performance Gambletron (Lisa Gamble) creates a live transmission of improvised noise, heavy beats, and distorted vocalizations using a wearable mobile FM radio station/synthesizer suit. Clad in their iconic, bold, femme drag Johnny Forever manipulates a set of ten to twenty or more radios laid out in an outdoor space, changing their locations to explore acoustical differences and constantly adjusting the tuning in search of Gambletron’s pirate transmission performance amid regular programming and static.

This work is a chapter in an ever morphing, site specific series in which Gambletron and Forever take audiences through urban environments, augmenting spaces with the sound and movement of radio. The piece is completely mobile. Gambletron, covered in this collage of digital and analogue technologies- some augmented and some homemade, pushes a veritable wall of sound through to a roving audience. Meanwhile, Johnny Forever engages audience members by handing them radios and encouraging them to move Gambletron’s transmission down city streets, into alleyways, around corners, to stack radios or swing them around, in a word- to experiment.

Gambletron’s wearable transmitter works at a range of several kilometres, giving the performers and participating audience members a wide berth for experimentation. A rogue audience member may choose to take a unit around a corner, becoming momentarily invisible but still able to access the sound. People holding radios may also choose to come together and build a wall of sound.