Insomniacs, we are listeners.
Awake, we are listening rather than sleeping for the sake of productivity.
Why loosen the grip of insomnia when we can tighten our listening?
When wakefulness is accepted rather than endured,
can night-time radio connect us as if we were lying shoulder to shoulder?

  • 15-16 November 2023
    Eora/Sydney     Wakefulness as resistance

    Radio Insomnia presents one all-night, live broadcast as part of Amplify: Story, Resistance, Radio, an exhibition and pirate radio program about the importance of amplification and listening in urban politics, at Tin Sheds Gallery.

    Wakefulness as resistance explores actions such as night protest, and soft activism in wakefulness, in awakening against chrono-normativity, against the silence of normalcy and in reconfiguring capitalist rhythms. Insomnia is political because it cannot let things rest.

    Detailed Program

    Open to the public, the broadcast is taking place at Frontyard.
    Address: 228 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville NSW 2204
    Hours: Midnight to 6 a.m.

  • 7-9 July 2023
    Tiohtià:ke/Montréal     Launch with two all-night broadcasts exploring the sociability of sleep

    Over two nights of live broadcasts from the Agora des Sciences at UQAM, Radio Insomnia unfolded with roundtable discussions, performances, listening sessions and broadcasts from the public space between 9 pm until 6 am. Seeking to address the specificity of night-time radio and listening, experiences of insomnia and dilated time, fatigue, questions of gender and the reappropriation of public space, Radio Insomnia engaged artists and audiences in alternating formats, performative and durational.

    Following a residency, Radio Insomnia took place as part of the exhibition InSomnolence, in Tiohtià:ke./Montréal.

    Detailed Program

    Performances and commissions by:
    Audio Placebo Plaza (Julia E. Dyck + Erin Gee + Vivian Li), Stéphanie Castonguay, Chantal Dumas, Nik Forrest, Amanda Gutíerrez avec Brujas & le Collectif Tribu, Nicolas Montgermont, Benny Nemer, Cynthia Noury, Martín Rodríguez …

    Roundtable discussions and interviews with:
    Aleksandra Kaminska, Elizaveta Solomonova & Alanna Thain (Sociability of Sleep), Jonathan Sterne & Rouzbeh Shadpey, Elena Biserna & Amanda Gutíerrez, Grant Smith & Dawn Scarfe (Soundtent / Reveil), Beatriz da Silva Takahashi & Oliver Philbin Briscoe (Fantom), Stefan Christoff & Joseph Sannicandro, Chantal Dumas, Philippe Battikha & Martín Rodríguez

  • 21 June-13 July 2023
    Tiohtià:ke/Montréal     Radio Insomnia installation for the exhibition InSomnolence

    Radio Insomnia presented an installation as part of the exhibition InSomnolence at the Agora at the University of Quebec in Tiohtià:ke./Montréal. Turning into a live radio studio at night, the installation was a listening station during the day with sonic contributions that responded to insomnia and night-time: wakefulness, awakening, night work, chrono-normativity, solitude and isolation, intimacy and the experience of dilated time.

    Rejecting the idea that there is such a thing as 'perfect' sleep, InSomnolence experiments with the thresholds of sleep and rest. Through artistic propositions, this exhibition asks how the exploration of a sleeper's subjectivity - the everyday ways in which we navigate time, space, ourselves and others - can help us to reimagine and reanimate the sociability of sleep.

    InSomnolence is the result of two years of creative practice-based research led by The Sociability of Sleep, an interdisciplinary research group exploring the equity of sleep, and the social forms of care it requires. Curators: Marianne Cloutier, Aleksandra Kaminska and Alanna Thain.

    More information:
    https://sociabilityofsleep.ca/insomnolence/

    Sonic contributions by: Jessica Arseneau, Azertype, Philippe Battikha, Ella Bellone, Laure Boer, Kieran Boland, Stephanie Castonguay, Florence Cherrier, Stefan Christoff & Joseph Sannicandro, Darcy Colin Adams, Eric Cordier & Sig Valax, Frédéric Danos, Mel Deerson, Emily DiCarlo, Kate Donovan, Julia Drouhin, Diana Duta & Paul Haworth, Fugitive Radio, MP Hopkins, Léa Jullien, Jeff Kolar, Celsian Langlois, Yoojin Lee & Giuseppe Termine, Alexandre Moreau, Morrisneri (Jen Morris & Stephane Neri), Ocean Viva Silver, Mikel R. Nieto, Oto Ninski, Nina Pankhaniya, Ana Maria Romano G, Rachel Schenberg & Jordi Infeld, James Schidlowsky, Gaël Segalen, Joachim Séné, Doriane Souilhol, Jonathan Sterne, Colette Tron & Jean-Marc Montera, Vamp Acid.

  • About

    Radio Insomnia is an invitation to listen with insomnia, rather than against it, for productivity. Drawing on radio as a medium with its qualities for fostering social relations, and night-time as an intimate space for listening, we aim at developing radiophonic devices for night communities.

    Radio Insomnia is interested in the political and poetic forces of waking at night, whether by constraint or by choice. Our starting point is that in the extractivist model of our late capitalist society, sleep is depoliticised: unproblematized as a resource for productivity, which is part of a very normative and synchronized schedule driven by labour and moral values.

    Whereas periods of wakefulness at night, were not always considered to be an illness and deficiency. Listening and other activities in the middle of the night were practised as part of day-to-day life prior to the industrial revolution. with two periods of sleep, with a first and second sleep, punctuated by wake. Across cultures, night-time is also a time for orality, for talking and listening. Commonly understood as an alarm bell, insomnia is a signal that something is wrong. With Radio Insomnia this is the signal that we want to follow and also broadcast.

    Contact:

    With Radio Insomnia, we ask -- What is the potential of listening at night when wakefulness is embraced rather than endured? In other words, what does it mean to listen “with” insomnia, rather than against it, for productivity?

    Radio Insomnia unfolds through live broadcasts, sound installations, and the creation of social spaces and. Night-time broadcasts are shaped by roundtable discussions, performances, artist commissions, and listening sessions, or include a live transmission from the public space.

    Created by and for sleepless bodies, Radio Insomnia was born of the collaboration between curator Anabelle Lacroix and artist Nicolas Montgermont.

    This project is supported by the University of New South Wales, MITACS, and the Consulate General of France in Montréal as part of the research project The Sociability of Sleep by McGill University and the Université de Montréal.

    . Graphic design by Aline Schneider, based on Avara font by Raphael Bastide
    . Radio Infrastructure by ∏node
    . Website by Nicolas Montgermont