By Radius, Senior editor: Meredith Kooi, Contributing Editors: Jeff Kolar, Rob Ray, Damon Loren Baker, Emilie Mouchous, Andrea-Jane Cornell. Cover image and book design: Jeff Kolar Chicago, IL, self-published, May, 2012
Pages: 28 page booklet
Dimensions: 8.5 in X 5.5 in
Cover: Soft
Binding: stapled booklet
Process: silkscreen and photocopy
Color: black ink
Edition size: 220 numbered copies
ISBN: none

We are excited by this new publishing development in the work of Radius. Radius is an experimental radio broadcast platform based in Chicago, IL that is administered by Jeff Kolar and edited by Meredith Kooi. "Radius provides artists with live and experimental formats in radio programming. The goal is to support work that engages the tonal and public spaces of the electromagnetic spectrum."

This first booklet by Radius, with a lovely hand silkscreened cover produced at Sputnik press in Chicago, focuses on the series "Range: Local Distant, Fringe". The series is described as follows:

"Range: Local, Distant, Fringe is a three-part, location-based series of radio transmissions that explores the phenomenon of signal strength. The series seeks to break, bend, and highlight the economic, political, and technical dimensions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Range uses the criteria found in proprietary mapping software that plots radio station coverage areas to analyze the importance of place for radio broadcasts. This software takes into account transmitter power, antenna height, frequency, antenna pattern, and etc. Commercial and community stations use this data to determine potential listeners.

The coverage areas are defined as:

Local: areas with very clear reception
Distant: areas with weak signal
Fringe: areas with very weak or no signal

A station’s signal strength broadly delimits that station’s territories. These territories further impact policy (i.e. FCC regulation, spectrum licensing), station-specific power (i.e. advertising, tower-space rentals), and public affairs (i.e. community programming, emergency alert systems). Range seeks to challenge these issues of signal accessibility, and question radio’s role as a distribution tool."

This booklet includes artist statements, images and interviews with each of the participants in "Range". They are: Emilie Mouchous & Andrea-Jane Cornell, Damon Loren Baker, and Rob Ray.

The work of Radius is a must for those interested in the creative possibilities for sound and broadcasting. Be sure to check out the broadcasts themselves online at http://theradius.us