Free-to-air Background



Artists Eileen Simpson & Ben White often work in public spaces: online, in clubs, magazines, shops and cinemas. Most recently they established the Open Music Archive – a collaborative initiative to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings.

Free-to-air, their new project for ARTRADIO, centres around an invitation for bands and musicians to perform covers, versions and interpretations of the 1920s and 30s out-of-copyright folk, blues, and jazz from the Open Music Archive. A series of live plugged and unplugged performances will take place in the Cornerhouse gallery and be broadcast live on the radio. Performances will be recorded and licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike, generating a new resource – free for use and reuse in the future.

The artists also present a series of radio broadcasts featuring copyleft licensed audio material including: new music, film soundtracks, archive material from the Open Music Archive, and discussions about free culture.

For two weeks Free-to-air opens up a temporary channel for music, exchange and discussion that operates beyond individual, proprietary and commercial interests – a series of truly free broadcasts.