Tender Transmissions by Alex Beckman, Kaif Ghaznavi, Malak Helmy, Lynne McCabe, Mike Maurillo, Ranu Mukherjee, George Pfau and Kris Timken

Tender Transmissions is an aural network produced through community participation and site-driven research. It is broadcast on a temporary FM radio station receivable in the Tenderloin district, available in segments via a telephone hotline, and installed at the Luggage Store Annex / Tenderloin National Forest. We came to this project with an interest in the intimate and invisible characteristics of sound, and its potential resonance at the threshold of the public and the private. Approaching the neighborhood with this in mind, we engage in a variety of artist projects with intimacy, desire and tenderness. By working with accessible technologies, combining radio (communal) with telephone (private) transmission and including content in multiple languages, we intended for the network to be available to most residents and visitors.

Tender Transmissions broadcasts its discrete content punctuated by ambient sounds from the neighborhood. The transmissions include conversations about love with seniors and parents of young children, songs and poetry chosen/created and sung/recited by participants, abstract compositions made from field recordings, a screenplay derived from conversations with erotic dancers around desires and fantasies that inspire their performances, ambient audio recorded during blindfolded walks with a community walking service and conversations between visiting Japanese college students and 1st and 2nd graders from the Tenderloin. The project also includes a self-reflective engagement with the position of the radio broadcast and the other public art projects within Wonderland, through interviews with curator Lance Fung and Elaine Zamora of the North of Market Community Benefit District.

Guided the figure of the network, we collaborated with the Glide Foundation, De Marillac Academy, the Vietnamese Youth Development Center, The Arlington Hotel- St. Vincent de Paul Society, Bay Fitted urban attire, Tenderloin Children’s Playground, Hospitality House, Vietnamese Community Center, Bay Area Women’s Center and countless individuals. The Arlington will permanently home to Lynne McCabe’s installation and continue to record conversations on love to add to the archive.