Black Brain Radio, a project by Dublin artist Garrett Phelan, is out now on Ninepoint Records.
Black Brain Radio is a continuation of Garrett Phelan’s most recent large scale body of work ‘Formation of Opinion‘, which explores the processes through which ideas or values enter into society. In Black Brain Radio the listener is presented with an onslaught of information reprocessed through the artist’s voice, and presented as a series of confusing, disjointed fragments. Black Brain Radio requires the listener to follow unpredictable, even obsessive thought-patterns, as subject-matter jumps without warning.
Phelan spent approximately two months collating and editing the information for Black Brain Radio, time he describes as "days of nothingness". An hour of this material is presented on this CD.
The Black Brain Radio transmission was originally broadcast around the clock over a 30-day period (from 19 January – 17 February 2006) to listeners within the greater Dublin area on a frequency of 89.9FM, reaching a wider global audience through its on-line presence. The project was further extended by two gallery installations marketing the frequency at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).
Garrett "… works and lives in Dublin, Ireland. In recent years Phelan has focussed his practice around extensive explorations into ‘the formation of opinion’ and ‘the absolute present’, particularly manifested through drawing, video, photography, web based projects and independent FM radio transmission projects in both gallery and non gallery spaces."
